


Parabellum

by killlanelle



Series: Fate's Gifts [2]
Category: Vis a Vis | Locked In (Spain TV)
Genre: Disaster Heist Wives, F/F, Family, Healing Zulema Zahir, Motherhood, Pregnancy, Sequel to Waterloo, The Ending I Wish I Had
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:13:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25823437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killlanelle/pseuds/killlanelle
Summary: Si vis pacem, para bellum.(If you want peace, be ready for war)
Relationships: Zulema Zahir/Macarena Ferreiro
Series: Fate's Gifts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805968
Comments: 134
Kudos: 156





	1. Solamente una Vez

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, my dearests! Back again, like I promised! 
> 
> My initial idea was to wait until halfway was finished before posting, but alas, couldn't keep myself away for too long. I put 1/20 just to give me some room, the amount of chapters can rise or fall after I finish writing everything. 
> 
> As the title promises, this story won’t be peaceful all the time. My main focus will be how these two deal with each other, a pregnancy, and eventually, a baby, but I also wanted to bring some antagonists back, just to spice things up a little.
> 
> The first chapters will procede right where we left off in Waterloo, with both of them on the run, planning their first heist together. I won’t discourse each robbery in detail, but the very first one I decided to describe it so you guys would have an idea of how it goes before I start picking up the pace and inserting new storylines and characters.
> 
> I'm being extremely careful with each chapter I write, so I can't really tell you guys how often I will update, so I ask for your patience. I'm giving my all to create this story as something beautiful, but my time is divided with my studies, so the time between updates might not be that consistent. 
> 
> Ah, I must also say that I took some poetic liberties in some parts and bended the Vis A Vis storyline a little to fit the situations I wanted to write (Saray's prison time, for example). Nothing harsh, but still, thought it was important to let you guys know.
> 
> Parabellum, as you can see, has an Explicit rating, which means, some scenes might be a little heavier than they were in Waterloo — violence and sex included — so, you might want to keep that in mind. If anything specific happens, I will warn you guys beforehand. 
> 
> (This one, for exemple, has a NSFW warning to you, gays)
> 
> I planned this story with all my heart, I sincerely hope all of you enjoy!
> 
> Warm hugs <3

_I am ready for war_ **_(parabellum)_ **

_Face me;_

_Kill me;_

_Cut_ **_(basium)_ ** _through this silence. Hurt_ **_(amare)_ ** _me until there are no parts of me left to hate, and no parts of you left to ache._

**_(Victoriam vocamus)_ **

_— - —_

“You must certainly thought of everything, rubia.” 

Macarena hears coming from behind her. Looking over her shoulder, the blonde gives the woman a smirk before returning her attention to the matter at hand.

Zulema’s head was turning to give the place a proper glance. She would have picked something smaller and easier to hide — like a caravan — but she had to admit, the blonde had chosen quite a place to live in.

Despite the stuffy smell coming from the furniture around her — and considering the fact she had spent half her lifetime inside prison — the camping trailer seemed to be actually comfortable. 

And spacious.

Under the nauseating beige and red palette, the trailer’s insides were furnished with the very basic for maintaining the minimal required to sustain yourself during a long trip. 

Right in front of her, laid a very boring looking couch — a plain two-seat — glued next to the driver’s cabin’s entrance. On the middle of the room, a simple kitchen, that occupied both sides of the trailer’s walls with countertops, cabinets, a fridge, stove and sink. 

At the extreme point of the trailer, a dining table, or at least, something similar to that. It was a simple square shaped table, with two armchairs facing it, adhered to the wall. Right beside it, there were two doors, one facing the table — a bathroom, she assumes — and the other, facing the driver’s cabin. A bedroom. 

Their bedroom.

Zulema feels a smirk form on her lip as she returns her attention to the blonde crouched down on the floor. Macarena was on her knees in front of the kitchen’s countertop, roaming through its cabinet with a frown on her face — clearly, looking for something. A smile forms on the blonde’s mouth before she raises herself back on her feet, a brown paper bag folded inside her hands.

Macarena tears through the wrapping before taking a look inside.

Cash. A couple of hundred euros. 

Back when she had started planning this heist, all those months ago, this trailer had actually been an spontaneous purchase — that later on, had become a backup plan in case everything went wrong. The blonde had parked it close enough to assure her she could have given up at any second, step inside it, and vanish. And to do that, she would need at least a certain amount of euros to keep herself afloat. 

Right now, this money would help them do exactly that.

Vanish.

Feeling the air around her shift, she lifts her gaze to find Zulema giving the paper bag inside her hands a curious look from over her shoulder. 

“A safety measure — she answers the brunette’s silent question — I know the diamonds might take a while to be sold, and we'll need money to disappear.” 

Zulema sucks the front of her teeth for a bit before giving her a single nod. They most certainly will need money for fuel, food and other necessities while they found a way to get under the radar. 

“Tomorrow, I will talk with a source to sell the diamonds.” Zulema informs her — hand sinking inside her back pocket to retrieve said piece and bringing it towards the place between them. 

The trailer’s walls were surrounded by windows — the morning light entering through the glass in a lazy fog. Its rays were reflecting upon the diamond’s surface in an almost hypnotic glow, turning the jewels into a sparkling ivy, curling around the brunette’s fingers.

Macarena feels herself be entranced by necklace’s spell for a second before her mind processes what Zulema had just said — old mistrust stirring inside her as she gives the woman a narrow look.

Noticing, the brunette raises her gaze to the blonde with an eyebrow lifted “ _Qué?_ ”

“ _You_ are going to sell the diamonds?” 

Realizing what exactly was making Macarena hesitate, Zulema rolls her eyes before giving her an ironic look “Aren’t we a little past that point, rubia?”

Macarena snorts, giving the woman an incredulous look “I simply know you, Zulema.” 

Humming, the brunette throws her head back to watch the blonde through her eyelashes — tongue roaming underneath her lips. Thinking.

_Ay, vale._

In a swift movement, Zulema raises her hand in front of Macarena, letting the necklace hang over her fingers. When the blonde simply gives her a blank look, she tilts her head forward, rushing her. 

Macarena blinks once, twice, before opening a hand underneath the piece, allowing the brunette to drop it inside her palm. The jewel is cold on her skin as she twirls it around her fingers — light eyes lifting to meet honey ones with a frown, internally pondering about the brunette’s intentions.

Zulema simply gives her smirk — arm returning to her side — before letting out an amused sigh “We should leave this place before Al Pacino decides to come look for you himself.” 

Squinting her eyes at the brunette one more time, Macarena places the necklace — and cash — inside the cabinet on top of the sink before giving the woman a nod.

“There is something we need to do, as well.”

— - — 

“Are you sure this is best, Fabio?” Valentín asks the man, his voice carrying a worried tone that matched with the deep frown that was cutting through his face.

Fabio briefly pauses his movements to give his friend a short nod, before continuing to carry the dead guard by the ankles inside the cottage.

Valentín accepts his response with an even deeper frown, an unease feeling stirring inside his stomach. He knows him. 

There was something very wrong growing inside his friend’s eyes.

After the girls had vanished and left them to deal with Emílio’s men by themselves, Gary and Fabio had worked together to shoot every single one of them down. In a handful of minutes, the very last guard had dropped dead on the floor with a muted thud — his very last breath a flag that signalized their victory over the Spanish mob’s boss ingenious intentions. 

Valentín had left a heavy sigh — shoulders dropping with a relief that lasted only a few seconds, turning into anxious worry the moment his younger brother had stepped inside the living room with a very familiar look upon his face.

Once you become an older brother, there are a few clues you start picking up as you start growing up along side an extremely troublemaker sibling. He remembers very clearly the moments Cristían had wore that expression. His younger brother never learned to hide his guilt very well — a tell their mother had figured out pretty soon, knowing instantly when the boy had done something she might thing was wrong.

His suspicions were confirmed merely a few minutes later, with the sound of Fabio letting out a yell and angrily throwing his phone on the wall — the piece crashing into a million shards. The man had turned a furious gaze at them, spatting that Macarena had betrayed them, escaping with Zulema and taking the necklace as well.

Valentín had rose a single eyebrow before giving his younger brother a narrow gaze. Cristían was shivering from head to toe — looking at everywhere _but_ him. 

_Oh, he must certainly did something._

Fabio had threw a punch on the wall in distaste before start shouting orders — saying that they should wait outside while he and Gary carried the guard’s bodies inside the house.

Frowning, Valentín had did what the man had asked — watching with a cold sensation bubbling up inside his stomach as the men dragged the heavy corpses through the front door.

He waits until the two men head back inside before turning a hard look upon his brother. Cristían almost flinches at the sudden movement, his eyes facing forward with a forced stillness settling over his body.

“What did you do, brother?” Valentín mutters under his breath, tilting his head a bit forward to allow his low voice to reach his anxious brother’s ears loud and clear. 

Cristían bites his bottom lip as he turns to meet his brother’s eyes with a frown, mouth opening and closing for a second before letting out a sigh. 

“I kind of knew.” He confesses, his voice a tone or two higher than normal. 

“Knew _what_?” 

“Knew that — he takes a deep breath, his eyes flickering to the cottage’s front door before returning to Valentín’s analytical stare — Macarena was totally having the hots for Zulema and was planning to escape with her.” 

Valentín’s mind takes a second to catch up to his ears — giving his younger brother a blank look before it turns into an incredulous expression.

“ _You what?_ ” He exclaims.

“Don’t blame me.” Cristían whines, head sinking into his shoulders in shame “You know how I am with romance, I simply couldn’t contain myself. Macarena seemed so happy with Zulema that I just—”

Valentín interrupts him with a hand on his mouth, stopping his brother’s ramble when he notices Fabio and Gary coming back outside to grab other two dead guards. He waits until the corpses vanish inside the house before removing his hand.

“Are you aware that if Fabio finds out you knew all this beforehand, in the state that he is, he might actually beat the crap out of you, brother?” 

“I know.” Cristían whimpers, both hands lifting to cover his face. 

Valentín purses his lips as he watches his younger brother squirm underneath his gaze. He knew Cristían had a soft heart inside his chest — he had always been like this, too tender to handle the weight of things. 

Melting like butter under the sun with matters of love.

He should have expected that he would grow a soft spot on the blonde — Valentín thinks as he lets out a deep sigh — the woman did have a few features that reminded them of a person long gone from their lives. 

A very dear person.

Briefly brushing a hand through his face, he closes a fist on Cristían’s shoulders “She’s not Natalia, Cris.”

“I know that, Valentín.” He replies, his tone suddenly serious “I’m not trying to replace her. Could I not help a friend when she needed the most?” 

“That help really needed to make us five million euros poorer?” Valentín asks him, an amused smile on his face, in an attempt to light up the air between them a little. Their sister had always been a soft topic for the younger man. 

“What is the price of love, Valentín?” Cristían jokes back, his youthful smile back on his face.

The both of them had been through a lot together. Starting over from the beginning was something that they had grew used to after a couple of years trying to make a living by themselves. Valentín will simply need to resurge his old contacts — Cristían could go back to bartending. 

And they would move on.

“Step away you two.” Fabio shouts at them, coming out of the house with Gary in toll. 

Differently from him, Valentín thinks. 

After working with drug dealers for half a lifetime, he started to recognize the beginning of an obsession by the look of a person’s eyes. The light Fabio’s pupils were reflecting at him were triggering a very distant memory of his old days.

That was merely the start of Fabio’s compulsions, he realizes, pulling his brother by the arm as they take a couple of steps away from the house.

Fabio was staring at the cottage with a disgusted look upon his face — fingers gripping a gasoline gallon inside his arms.

He will let her know he will not let things be the way they were.

_He won’t let her go_.

_— - —_

Zulema glances at the room around her with something akin to boredom curled upon her lips — a certain amount of distaste was shinning through her expression as honey colored eyes scanned every single face and detail of the store they had just stepped in.

The brunette knew she would never have a normal life like these people. Nor wanted to.

_Ni en sueños._

Wake up early to a shitty job, spend half her lifetime in traffic — count the seconds until it was the weekend so she could go to a crappy bar, drown herself in alcohol, before return back home, lay down on an awful bed, alone, close her eyes and wake up to start another fucking day. On a loop.

No, that wasn’t for her. 

She loved life — true life. _True freedom._

The freedom to live without fear, without ties — knowing that everything she’d want, she could get. With no concrete walls to keep her, no iron bars to contain her. Be free to feel the grass underneath her feet, the wind on her hair and the sun on her skin.

The worst thing about prison wasn’t the years you spend locked inside it, but the fact that time, inside it, was dead. 

Spain abolished capital punishment in 1978, but to her, that fact was merely a political move. No. Death penalty still existed. It had only been prolonged, extended, twisted into something that killed slowly, with each day. Prison takes you apart, piece by piece, the longer you stay inside it. 

And it hurt. _Profoundly._

“It’s been a few years since the last time I stepped inside a supermarket.” Zulema hears before turning her head to face the blonde beside her. 

Macarena had a shopping cart inside her hands, huge sunglasses covering half her face — a precaution. She was twilling a blonde lock inside her fingers as her eyes scanned the people around them. With much less distaste than the brunette herself, however. 

Zulema purses her lips as she casts an eye over the blonde. 

Her pain inside prison had become bearable the moment she started to occupy her nights with the feeling of Macarena’s skin underneath the fingertips. Inevitably, the blonde had entered inside her bloodstream in a way she could only gape at — staring in contempt as she got deeper and deeper with each beat of her heart. 

Fate had been a bitch enough to connect the first thing she wanted most in life, with the second — biding their paths together, turning Macarena into the one responsible for giving her her so desired freedom. It was ironic that the same hands that tried to choke her to death while she peed were the same ones that opened the gates to the life she yearned for. 

And now, here she was, staring at Macarena with that ever growing humming underneath her skin — a song, screaming to be heard over the sound of the constant pulse inside her ribcage. 

_Puta rubia._

Ignoring the feeling stirring on the pit of her stomach, she pushes her own set of sunglasses higher up her nose before letting out a hum — loud enough to make that set of light eyes turn to meet with hers.

“We need to buy only the necessary” Zulema starts, her voice carrying an annoyed tone “But not everything. We grab somethings here, pay, and drive to another store so we don’t turn any heads with large carts.” 

Macarena’s lips starts to curl into an amused smile — pursing them to prevent herself to let out the laugh that was bubbling up her throat. 

“ _Qué?_ ” The brunette asks, mouth curling into a small snarl.

“Don’t you get tired?” The blonde chuckles, at last.

“Of what?” 

“Being so bossy?” 

Rolling her eyes, Zulema bends to grab a shopping basket for herself before opening her mouth “Don’t attract attention to yourself, and don’t take too long.” She says before storming through the corridors.

Macarena watches her go with a smirk, entertained by the brunette’s silent answer to her question. With a small laugh, the blonde starts pushing the cart forward, strolling through the aisles — wondering internally what would they need to buy first before heading to another store.

After driving for a couple of hours to gain some distance from the cottage, they had stopped on the first gas station they had found to fill up the tank. Macarena had entered its small shop briefly to pay for the fuel — hand swiftly lifting to include a pair of sunglasses on the bill after receiving a way too prolonged stare from the cashier— before they had hit the road once more. 

By the time they had stopped the trailer again, the sun was burning hot in the sky and her stomach was starting to roll over itself with hunger. They had chosen a market that was far away enough from the main city for them feel somewhat relaxed and not too worried about attracting too much attention.

Not that relaxing was something Zulema understood, the blonde thinks to herself, snorting mentally. 

Slowing the cart down to a full-stop, Macarena passes a hand through her hair as she stares at the diverse pasta brands that were filling the shelf in front of her — mentally squeezing her mind to drip down the distant memory of how much food they would need to last a couple of weeks. The last time she did a grocery run that size, she had been in love with Simón. 

Back at the cottage, she had let Fabio be responsible for those kind of chores. A responsibility, she remembers with distaste, he had been more than happy to comply. Thriving in the domestic bliss her father’s beach house had created for him. She, however, had been too worried about the heist itself to actually give a damn about what they were eating — or the act of eating at all. 

Letting out a sigh, she throws two random packages inside the cart before moving on to a more sustainable part of the food aisle. 

Half an hour later, her shopping cart was halfway full, getting heavier by the second, and she still had not seen a single glimpse of that familiar brunette head roaming through the store’s corridors. 

Giving the groceries an analytical look, Macarena ponders for a second or two before deciding she had taken enough — closing her fingers on the handle once more to push the cart deeper through the store and into a different section. 

Near the food area, there was a small part that contained a clothing department — nothing that seemed to belong to any particular brand, merely some casual shirts, jackets and jeans. 

Parking the shopping cart near some clothing racks, she starts roaming through them — grabbing a few shirts she likes, along with some jeans, shorts, and underwear. Not too much. After all, it was their first store of the day. 

After a few seconds of consideration, she decides to grab some cold weather clothes as well. Winter was close, and the temperature sure will drop a few degrees inside a trailer that had no internal heat system.

Draping the clothes over the groceries, she pushes the cart forward again, eyes scanning absentmindedly as she strolls pass the other clothing sections. 

Her movements come to an abrupt halt when her gaze falls on a specific area — breath hitching up inside her throat when her mind catches up to her eyes and realizes what she was staring at.

A baby aisle. 

Macarena pauses briefly in front of it — heart suddenly tripling its beating inside her chest. She counts a few beats before moving once again, entering.

There were shelves and shelves of baby clothes surrounding her — pieces she had never thought that could be sold in a size so small. 

Parking the shopping cart once again, she steps in front of a shelf, hand lifting to take hold of a tiny pair of running shoes — it barely occupied half of her palm, the foot wear so small it must certainly must have been made for a newborn. She feels her heart warm up at the sight, one hand intuitively dropping down to caress her stomach.

In a few months time, she would have a tiny foot to fill up that tiny shoe.

Macarena was probably nearly reaching the two month mark by now, taking into account the morning sickness she started to feel recently. With the way things started to get more complicated, she wouldn’t be able to know for sure now. 

Considering the fact the police most certainly had placed a search warrant for Zulema and Emílio’s sudden obsession for her had become a bigger problem than she had expected, she wouldn’t be able to show her face inside a hospital any time soon — if at all.

_There was always a price to pay for freedom._

“Already in the nesting phase, rubia?” 

Macarena swallows down a cry, hand going to her chest. Taking a deep breath to calm down the samba inside her thorax, she turns to meet Zulema’s eyes with a hard stare.

“Considering we barely have a nest, Zulema, I don’t think so.” The blonde replies, bitterly, returning the baby shoe to the shelf. 

The brunette gives her an amused smirk before throwing the itens she had inside her arms within the shopping cart — her basket, apparently, had been discarded along the way. Macarena feels her eyebrows rise up to her hairline as she takes notice of what exactly Zulema had decided was a priority to buy first.

Over their groceries, and her clothes, laid a couple of band t-shirts, combat boots, black pants, a first aid-kit and — of course — a bottle or two of the strongest tequila the store had to offer. Somehow, the blonde doesn’t feel a single drop of surprise course throw her with the brunette’s preference.

“Tequila?” Macarena asks her, an amused smile upon her lips “Not anything stronger? Maybe jet fuel? I always imagined you would drink something like scorpion's poison to keep up with your reputation.” The blonde laughs — light eyes glowing at the annoyed brunette in front of her. 

“That’s for another store.” Zulema answers, lips curling into an ironic smile — making Macarena let out a snort. 

The brunette tilts her head to the side to give the blonde an analytical look — gears turning inside her head as she remembers the hours they shared earlier that day. Pursing her lips, she turns her gaze to the foot wear that had held the blonde’s attention minutes prior.

“Those don’t last long.” She says, pointing a finger towards the piece “They grow too fast. You might want to buy something more versatile, like socks.” Zulema finishes, finding her eyes once again.

Macarena feels herself pause at the brunette’s words — mind coming into an abrupt halt when she remembers, quite suddenly, that Zulema had been pregnant before. The blonde feels her brain turn into a knot as she tries to picture the woman in front with a nine month due belly. 

The human mind was capable of many achievements, but that image was something she simply could not even begin to visualize.

She meets Zulema’s eyes with a frown — feeling more torn by the second.

The price of becoming the person that knew the scorpion the most these days was to always find yourself standing on top of a tightrope — internally flickering between memories in an attempt to try and figure out the woman’s intentions behind those eyes. 

Zulema had told her earlier that morning that they would handle whatever that was growing inside her stomach. Now, those words were echoing quite loudly inside her skull.

_Was she truthful?_

She knows Zulema long enough to know when she’s lying. But, still, sometimes, her mind enjoyed playing tricks with her, making her see and hear things that weren’t really there — just mirages. Little yearnings her heart was whispering inside her ears.

They had been tiptoeing around that feeling the moment she first felt Zulema’s weight dip her bed inside prison— and later on, her cottage — all those months ago. With both of them not getting too close, nor too far, from each other. 

The instant Zulema had crossed that line, they had formed a tacit agreement — a term she learned with Román’s wife while they were married. She had established a deal with the brunette, one that didn’t need to be spoken to be understood. They would keep this up, this cat and mouse game, but neither would say a whisper about it. 

Back then, the rules seemed pretty clear. 

But now, Zulema’s eyes were shinning with an emotion that she had tried, quitemiserably, to prevent herself from yearning. Tenderness was burning inside honey eyes in a way that was making her chest, in cue, start warming up from underneath her skin. 

Their rules had never been so blurry before.

Swallowing dry, she gives the brunette a tight smile — fingers closing around the shopping cart’s handle in a white grip before pushing it forward to make a turn, facing it in the cashier’s direction. 

“We should go before it gets too late to stop on other stores.” Macarena mutters before storming ahead, not bothering to check if the brunette was following her or not.

Zulema watches her go with a lip trapped between her teeth, eyes squinting as she sees the blonde head turn around the corner and disappear. Letting out a snort, the brunette glances at the baby shoe one last time before heading after the woman — hands closing into a fist to try and stop the buzzing that was coursing underneath her palms.

_— - —_

Zulema lifts a hand to bring the cigarette to her mouth, placing the bud in between her lips to breathe in deeply, letting the smoke enter her lungs in a slow pace — holding for as long as she can before turning her head to the side and exhale the smoke towards the open window beside her. 

Gripping the steering wheel tighter, she pushes her sunglasses higher up her nose when a flash of sunlight briefly blinds her before returning her arm to the trailer’s windowsill — fingers dancing in the breeze as she steps her foot deeper into the pedal, driving even faster. 

The sun was setting in front of her, painting the sky in a sea of colors — uneven spots of glowing orange were shinning through the dark crimson clouds, leaving only a bright white dot on the horizon, slowly receding, welcoming the cold night around them. 

Taking one more drag, she turns her head to face the asleep figure seating on the passenger seat beside her. Macarena had her elbow resting on the door, one palm open to support her head as it swayed along with the movement of the trailer. 

The blonde had been staring out the window throughout the whole ride — deep in thought — before a slow blink had turned into deep slumber. Her hair was down, being softly blown by the wind passing through the open window beside her, allowing for the dying rays of sunshine to warm up the side of her cheek, kissing her skin as she retrieved a few hours of lost sleep.

After leaving that first store, they had simply thrown their groceries on top of the couch before moving on to another store — and then another, and another — until the sky above them was no longer blue and they had enough to last them at least a couple of weeks without showing their face in a public department again. 

The moment they had placed their last shopping bags on the trailer’s floor, Zulema had taken two large steps and had sat in front of the steering wheel — informing the blonde she knew a place they could lay low without needing to keep glancing over their shoulders for any possible dangers. 

Macarena had been tired enough to simply give her a nod in confirmation, dropping down on the seat beside the brunette to stare out the window as they drove down the pavemented road— a position she had kept until her eyelids fell shut, her head had fallen to the side, and the space inside the driver’s cabin had started to be filled with the sound of soft snores.

Zulema feels as smirk form on her face when Macarena starts letting out a funny noise — an acute tone, growing from her throat, passing through her parted lips and reaching the brunette’s ears in a soft snort.

Taking one last drag of her cigarette, Zulema throws the bud out before taking a sharp turn to the right — the trailer’s wheels leaving the cemented road into the dirt one with an abrupt swerve. 

The scenario around them was changing fast — dull landscape slowly disappearing and turning into a denser one, with trees becoming less even spaced until there was only a thick dark green curtain rushing throughout the window as she stepped even further down the pedal. 

She drove long enough for the sun to finally set over the horizon, covering them into a chilly darkness — the cold hugging her bones as a reminder of the winter season that was just turning around the corner. 

Slowly, the trailer’s headlights start shining a breach at the end of the road, an opening. Smirking briefly, Zulema speeds up ever more, until — finally — they enter into a clearing. 

The trees had separated to form a broad circle, surrounding a silent pond that laid ahead of them — forming a natural barrier against peering eyes. From her position, she could see the headlight’s light being reflected in it’s calm ripples, forming a sparkling blanket on top of the water’s surface. 

A few meters aways from the pond, Zulema slowly brings the trailer into a stop — turning the key halfway through to shut down the engine, but still keep the headlights on. 

Turning her head to the figure beside her, the brunette yanks her sunglasses off before lifting a hand to swiftly tap the back of her fingers on the blonde’s arm “Rubia.” 

Macarena wakes up with a start, straightening herself quickly as light eyes scanned the room around her for any possible danger.

“It’s me. We arrived.” Zulema tells her simply. 

The blonde lets out a sigh — ironically, relaxing instantly when she finds herself alone with the brunette. She lifts one hand to cover her mouth when a profound yawn courses through her before curling it around her eyes to brush the fine sand that had accumulated around her tear ducts. 

She didn’t had any intentions of actually falling asleep, but then, her eyelids had started getting heavier, her blinking slower, and before she knew it, she had fallen asleep while Zulema drove them for the second time that day. 

Her pregnancy — and countless hours of lost sleep — were finally getting the best of her.

Passing a hand through her hair to align a few rebel locks in place, she finally brings her gaze to the imagery in front of her — eyebrows slowly lifting to meet her hairline as she gapes in wonder at the place the brunette decided to take them.

It was a new moon that night, so the ambient around them was duskier than usual, but the trailer’s headlights were strong enough to allow her a little visualization of the clearing they had stepped into. 

As far as she could see through the darkness, it was beautiful.

“How did you come to learn of this place, Zulema?” The blonde asks, turning her gaze to the woman beside her. 

Zulema was staring straight ahead, teeth biting the inside of her bottom lip as she briefly grips the steering wheel a bit tighter. She takes a while to answer — long enough to make the blonde believe she wasn’t even getting a reply in the first place.

“I used to come here to be alone.” The brunette answers, at last. 

_After Fátima was taken._

Her mind rings back to her — cutting like a knife through her thoughts, rashly, making them bleed, leaking pass the barriers she had created around that particular part of her memories. 

The scorpions are magnificent animals. Nature designed them to be able to survive in the most brutal environments — turning them in the ultimate predator. Once a scorpion has eyes on its victim, it was only a matter of time before it strike their fatal blow: the sting. 

It had took years to track down the man that had taken her daughter from her. 

Zulema had followed his scent all the way to Spain. It didn’t matter how far he went, she would kill him for what he did. 

The brunette knew the path she was following was one she would probably need to roam alone — one she might not return. Scorpions never back down, neither would she. The night she left Arab soil was the also night she had allowed herself to feel her daughter in her arms one last time.

Fátima’s location had become clear to her the moment she started searching for her. _Su madre_. Of course she would meddle on that business, that’s what children were worth for — a negotiation. 

Her mother had taken her daughter as soon as she was born. 

There had been a time she had desired that her madre worried about her, held her as a mother should do, and not sell her to an already twice married man the moment she bled the bed for the first time. 

_Asqueroso._

The pain she felt course through her as she watched her daughter being taken from her arms had been strong enough for the only thing left pulsating inside her chest become the desire for vengeance and nothing else. 

Killing him felt final. 

A sensation very similar to suddenly entering a quiet room after the ears had been hammered by noise the whole day. A haunting stillness had been coursing through her body, like a lover’s hand — cold fingers caressing the skin of her shoulder, passing through her elbow, curling around her fingers as she had took aim of his repugnant head, pausing only for a brief second before pulling the trigger. 

A sting.

She had found that clearing that very same day. 

After leaving his body to rot, Zulema had entered her car and drove until the buildings around her became trees, dark sky above her into a soft blue. The clearing had been a surprise — a wrong turn, by accident. 

She had sat in front of that lake for hours, simply staring as the water glowed underneath the bright morning sun, feet sinking into the grass — heart collapsing through her insides. 

Letting out a sigh, Zulema passes a hand through her mouth before turning to find a curious face staring at her. Macarena was giving her a look that seemed to be seeing right through her — light eyes telling her she knew which weight those words actually carried. 

The blonde purses her lips before giving her a single nod — deciding it was probably best not to push Zulema, especially when she didn’t had the energy to handle it at the moment. 

Mentally categorizing that situation to a later time, Macarena raises herself to her feet to enter the living area of the trailer, placing her hands upon her hips as she stares at the mess in front of her.

The wooden floor was barely visible underneath the army of plastic bags that were covering its surface — a result of spending their entire day shopping for basic necessities. Passing a hand through her hair, Macarena briefly closes her eyes when she feels her tiredness pulsate behind her skull.

“We should sort this out before tomorrow morning.” She hears coming from behind her. 

Opening them once again, she turns to find Zulema also giving their daily assignment a disgruntled squint. 

“Can you start with the groceries? There’s something I wanted to check out.” Macarena asks her — internally hoping that whatever had made the brunette suddenly somber didn’t managed to turn her mood into a sour one. 

To her relief, Zulema simply nods at her, taking two steps forward to enter the kitchen area and start working on their groceries — sorting them between their cabinets and fridge.

Pushing a few itens to the side, Macarena closes her hands around a large cardboard box that was thrown on top of the couch. Tearing through the material, she pulls the item out to take a proper look at it. It was a TV — small enough to fit inside her hands with relative ease, just around twenty centimeters wide. A vintage model. 

They needed a way to stay more in touch with the outside world — and besides, there was a small part of her that was dreading the thought of what exactly the both of them might do if they got too bored inside that trailer. Throwing knifes at each other was not an image that was too far from turning into reality.

Placing the TV on the countertop, she untangles the energy wire before bending to connect it on the plug. It takes a while for it to properly turn on, white noise filling the room as its engines started to move — as if waking from a deep slumber, interference slowly turning into a face, sizzling into voices.

And then, there was a man staring at them, suit and tie, talking with an even tone as he organized the papers inside his hands.

The news.

_“—rgent information. Our team have just arrived at the scene.”_

Blinking a few times, she feels her heart skip a beat when the image shifts — throat closing up in fear.

It was showing a recording of her cottage. 

And it was on fire.

_“Police hasn’t found any traces of what might have happened inside the cottage, just that the bodies of eight men were found inside.”_

Her cottage was being filmed from above, by a helicopter — its rotor blade was blowing the huge thick smoke away to reveal the blinding flames glowing through the darkness that were consuming every inch of wood, brick and stone.

The front lawn was occupied with several police cars, forming a circle right in front of it. The unison of sirens were blending underneath the deafening sound of the firemen’s, parked beside them — turning the image of a once beloved house into an excruciating show of light, noise and heat. 

There were at least five firemen standing in front of the flames, holding a large hose, pointing its white water stream straight at the angry heart of the fire — desperately trying to put away the scorching carcass her cottage had become. 

_“The firemen are already controlling the scene, the captain has just informed us there were traces of gasoline on the ground, indicating the flames were self inflicted.”_

Macarena’s mind momentarily flashes her the image of a dream she had a couple of days ago, when the deep parts of her subconscious had created a scene pretty similar to that one — that memory hooks onto another, and her mind floods with a conversation she had with Saray months ago, back in prison. Something about bad omens. She wonders if that’s what’s she’s seeing. 

A burning omen, a warning of her fate. 

Feeling a hand landing on the back of her spine, Macarena turns her head to the side to find Zulema watching the TV from over her shoulder — green eyes burning with an intensity pretty similar to the fire that was shinning through the television’s screen. 

_“The lieutenant in charge informed us that they had just received an anonymous call saying the fugitive, Zulema Zahir, had been responsible for such events.”_

Letting out a mean snort, Macarena meets said fugitive’s eyes with an ironic look upon her face — exchanging a knowing glance with the brunette before turning to watch the news again. 

One name popping up inside their minds.

Fabio.

_“Zulema Zahir has escaped the prison of Cruz del Norte a few of days ago, the police had prepared a search for her whereabouts, but so far, nothing.”_

Zulema lets a smirk form on her lips. _Imbéciles._

_“The police has tried to contact the cottage’s owners, finding out that ex-prisoner Macarena Ferreiro is a co-owner of the house. They had tried to contact her, but she has not been found. Her brother, Román Ferreiro, is being interrogated about her whereabouts as we speak. The police is opening a case to investigate if both Zulema Zahir and Macarena Ferreiro are involved together in these events. If you have any information to share with the police, please contact the following nu—”_

Macarena shuts the TV off with a slam of her finger, letting out a groan as she passes both her hands through her hair in frustration. 

_Mierda._

It wasn’t good that the police was already suspecting of her partnership with Zulema. She had hoped they would have had at least a little more time before they started connecting that particular set of dots. 

_Fucking Fabio._

“Rubia, I must say, the way you deal with your loose ends is incredible.” Zulema mocks, blowing her lips with a hand waving in front of her face “Estoy impresionada.” 

Macarena takes a step to the side to face the brunette, giving her a dirty look despite internally agreeing with the woman — a fact she would never let the woman know, however “Because your way would be so much better?” 

“My way wouldn’t be calling the police and ratting us off.” Zulema replies, throwing her head back to watch the blonde through her eyelashes — a smug smile coursing through her lips. 

“Killing is not always the way, Zulema.” Macarena tries, knowingly lying through her teeth. She refused to let the woman know she was right. 

The brunette gives her an exasperated look “ _Oh, no?_ — she starts, her voice carrying a tone so ironic Macarena feels her stomach burn hotter than the flames that consumed her cottage— Next time, we should have an open communication. Just like the one you had with that guard when you slammed his head open with a rock.” 

Macarena meets green eyes in a scorching match, feeling every drop of hate pump through her veins as she stares at the woman in front of her. 

Zulema reacts to her anger the same way she usually did, by making it worse. 

The blonde feels her breath hitch when the brunette suddenly tilts her head forward, closing the distance between their faces in a swift movement, near enough that Macarena could feel her warm breath against her mouth — lips, inevitably, parting in anticipation. 

Noticing, Zulema’s smirk grows ever larger — making the blonde squirm has always been her favorite hobby. 

Instead of fulfilling her wishes, the brunette lets her cheek brush against Macarena’s, leaving a burning trails through her jaw before she closes her lips on the woman’s earlobe. 

Biting hard.

The sound that leaves Macarena’s lips almost makes her change her mind, but, eventually, she pulls back to stare at the blonde’s eyes — drinking every emotion coursing through her darkened pupils. 

She waits until the blonde meets her gaze once again before allowing a smug smile to form on her mouth — Macarena answers her with a nasty look upon her face, both anger and desire bubbling up inside her stomach in a burning battle. 

Zulema didn’t need to say a single word to tell her who had won that discussion. The blonde lost the second that sound had left her lips in a breathy plead —both of them knew that. 

Holding her gaze, the brunette slowly places a cigarette between her lips, curving a hand in front of her face to light it before taking a deep breath. Throwing her head back, she gently blows the smoke in the blonde’s face with a smirk — enjoying every second of this.

She stares at the feelings running through Macarena’s eyes for a second more before turning on her heels, opening the trailer’s door with a yank and stepping outside into the cold night — leaving the blonde to mull over the sudden heat that was accumulating between her thighs by herself. 

Macarena waits until the door swings back shut before throwing an angry kick at the countertop beside her feet, grunting underneath her breath. 

_Puta elfa del puto infierno._

Letting out a groan, the blonde passes both hands through her hair in frustration, taking a deep breath to try and recompose herself. She always hated how easily Zulema could make her crumble into her fingers. 

Resting her hands on her hips, she turns her focus to the remaining shopping bags scattered through the trailer’s wooden floor. Sighing, she starts sorting them out — mentally cursing the brunette with each item she puts in the right place.

— - — 

Later that night, Macarena opens her eyes when she feels a body laying down on the bed behind her. 

After finishing organizing everything they had bought that day, the blonde had decided to make something to eat and brew herself some tea to help her fall asleep — the memories that were coursing through her mind weren’t exactly peaceful.

The tea had calmed her down enough to allow her to lay herself down without having the images of those warm lips occupying themselves in other parts of her body — eyelids closing to catch a couple hours of sleep. Tiredness, finally, taking hold of her.

But now, she had never felt more awake.

The bedroom was dark enough for her to be able to merely catch blurry silhouettes through the corner of her eye, but, after spending two months sharing a bed with Zulema every night, back in prison, Macarena started developing almost a sixth sense to her presence — body automatically heating up with the smallest shifts in her bed. 

Back then, she knew exactly what to expect once she felt that familiar weight dip her mattress.

Now, she wasn’t so sure.

Zulema was laying quietly behind her, merely breathing. 

The bed may be large — considering it was made for a camping trailer — but not enough to allow a distance sufficiently great for them to not feel each other. Zulema’s warmth was leaking through her body, slithering right into the fabric of the blonde’s shirt, possessively, slowly heating up the skin of her back. 

Macarena starts burning holes on the wall in front of her, teeth biting her bottom lip hard enough to make it bleed as she counts the seconds on her head — time, suddenly, passing much slower inside the room. 

Despite the chords being different, Macarena knew the lyrics to this song they played together by heart — its rhythm becoming as familiar as the frequency of her pulse pumping through her veins. 

Being Zulema’s lover had never been a fair game — the tables would constantly shift, turning into something entirely different. In a blink of an eye, an winning play could become a brutal lost, an angry fight into burning fingers coursing through her clothes. 

She waits for the brunette’s first move with a red-hot anticipation curling inside her stomach — internally wondering what type of game they would play this time. 

In a second or two, she receives her answer with the sensation of Zulema turning on the mattress behind her — a heated sigh suddenly caressing the back of her scalp, sending shivers down her spine.

Macarena feels her breathing hitch inside her throat when cold fingers start touching the side of her neck, brushing her blonde hair to the side before warm lips close themselves around her skin — leaving a hot mark.

It only lasts a second, before it vanishes. But it’s enough for her.

Turning on her back, Macarena lifts her gaze to the woman beside her. Zulema was supporting herself on her elbow, staring down at her with an blank expression — her eyes, however, were burning with that familiar honey shade that she had started to long for. 

Behind that kiss, there was a question hanging in the air between them as they stared into each other’s eyes — filling up the space, making it thicker. Denser. 

Now, they were alone together. 

_By choice._

Back at the cottage — even back in prison — there were multiples factors that had been influencing their actions. In Cruz del Norte, they were stuck together. In the beach house, they had an heist to perform. 

But now, technically, there was nothing forcing them to stay together. They had the means, and the tools, to live apart from each other from now on. Zulema could do magic with a couple of million euros. She knows. She remembers.

Now, they had thirty five million euros. 

And still, here she was. 

It was hovering between them, she thinks. The heaviness of their choices. 

They were silently writing a new set of rules, for a new kind of game. A match with transparent cards — both of them knowing the other’s hand, but neither willing to acknowledge it. 

Long gone were the days she denied herself from desiring Zulema. 

Holding the brunette’s stare, Macarena slowly lifts a hand, curling it around the brunette’s cheek. The skin is warm underneath her touch as she starts pulling Zulema’s head forward, closer, until the distance between their faces is so short she can smell the nicotine in the woman’s breath. 

She pauses, hesitating. 

Zulema doesn’t let her, instantly crossing the space between them to close her lips around Macarena’s mouth with a deep kiss. 

The blonde inhales sharply as she pulls the woman even closer, fingers sinking into dark locks to form a fist — hesitation melting into longing as her heart double its beat inside her chest, liquid heat coursing through her ribcages, taking hold of her entire self before sinking down her abdomen and deep within her legs. 

Cold hands start roaming the skin of her stomach, aggressively invading her shirt, leaving a trail of pain as the brunette curves a hand around her waist, dragging Macarena underneath her.

A moan leaves the blonde’s mouth when a leg quite suddenly presses itself in the space between her thighs, sending a warm wave of pleasure up her stomach, making her hips start rolling against Zulema’s leg — seeking, no, needing to increase the friction in the area. The hand around her waist drops to her hip, encouraging the movement. 

Repositioning herself, Zulema closes a fist of blonde hair to pull Macarena’s head back, breaking the kiss to descend her mouth on the soft skin of her neck, lips leaving a burning path down its length before closing around her pulse point — biting hard enough to make her hiss in pain.

The sound seems to encourage the woman even harder as she latches on her skin once more, making the blonde tighten her hold against dark hair in response — hips riding the brunette even harder. 

Hissing turns into a deep moan when a warm tongue caress the pain sharp teeth left behind, the sound loud enough to make Macarena, intuitively, put her fist inside her mouth in an attempt to muffle her whimpers — grown used to needing to be quiet in moments like these.

Noticing, Zulema drops her hand from the blonde’s hair to form a grip around her wrist, head lifting to meet unfocused light eyes with a hard look upon her face.

“Not this time, cariño.” The brunette says, yanking the wrist away from Macarena’s mouth “This time I want to hear them.” 

As if to prove her point, Zulema pushes her leg even harder against the blonde’s center, making her eyes squeeze shut in pleasure when — as requested — a deep moan leaves her lips, uninterrupted. 

Releasing her hip, slender fingers close themselves around the hem of Macarena's shirt to harshly push the fabric up her body, almost tearing it as she removes it, leaving her exposed to the chilly night air. She doesn’t feel cold for too long, hot lips wrapping around her breast — warm tongue caressing the skin it finds in there. A groan leaves the blonde’s mouth as she pushes Zulema’s head closer to her chest, mind entering into a pleasure haze.

Hastily, Macarena starts pulling against the brunette’s shirt, needing to feel her everywhere. Understanding her, Zulema raises herself up enough to remove her own shirt before meeting the blonde’s lips into a heated kiss — flushing their bodies together once again. 

The sensation of Zulema’s bare skin against her own is intoxicating enough to make Macarena course her hands through the woman’s back. Red painful lines were cutting the pale skin as her nails left an angry trail down her spine, hard enough for her to feel the brunette's sharp hiss inside her mouth. 

Repositioning herself between her thighs, Zulema parts from her to start descending her body, leaving a warm path of open-mouthed kisses down her neck, chest, abdomen. Teeth close themselves around the curve of her hip, hard enough to bleed — payback for the scratching, she knew — before lips meet the hem of her pants.

Sitting back on her heels, Zulema closes two fists on the waist band, pulling it harshly, angrily removing the fabric down her legs before throwing it behind her — pausing momentarily to admire the scene in front of her.

Macarena’s face was flushed, blonde hair thrown carelessly on the bed as her mouth laid half open, breathing heavily. Her skin was marked with purple bruises all around her neck and bare chest — an angry looking bite already darkening around her hipbone. 

Zulema had never thought she would start enjoying leaving the blonde in such state, much less crave it. Sleeping with Macarena had been an deliberate move, once. A manipulate play, something to twist with the blonde’s thoughts, mark her from the inside out. 

But now, the brunette found herself sinking into dark waters alongside her, falling deeper with each time she would felt Macarena’s eyes burn against her skin — amplifying the loud humming underneath it until she could feel it pulsate on the tip of her fingers. 

Macarena fooled her in a game she didn’t even know she was playing. 

Something she would never let her know, she thinks, as she bends her head forward to lay a kiss upon the woman’s leg. The blonde was biting her lips in anticipation, watching Zulema through her eyelashes as her mouth descended her thigh, leaving a warm trail from the curve of her knee down to her inner thigh — a gasp coursing through her lips when the brunette’s mouth reaches the hem of her panties. Letting out a deep moan when she feels Zulema licking her through the fabric, making her hips tilt up with the sensation. 

Merely a tease. 

Anger starts mixing with desire inside her stomach when she sees a smirk forming on the brunette’s mouth — most certainly feeling amused at how wet Macarena already was — honey eyes glowing with mischief as she watched the annoyance course through the blonde’s face. 

Zulema lets out a snort, closing her fingers around her panties to pull the piece down and off her legs before supporting herself on her elbows between Macarena’s thighs. The brunette drops her head low enough to allow her lips to hover the blonde’s center without really touching it, simply letting her breath reach the sensitive skin in a warm gasp.

The blonde starts squirming underneath her, biting her bottom lip in frustration, knowing full well what exactly Zulema was waiting for.

A plead.

The brunette was feeling no rush, letting her lip lightly graze the blonde’s wetness, briefly tasting her. She repeats the movement once, twice, three times before she hears Macarena let out an irritated groan — a white flag to her ears.

“Zulema.” 

Honey eyes lift to meet with light ones, a brow raised — she wanted to hear the words.

“ _I need you._ ” Macarena manages to hiss, the words coming out muffed through her clenched teeth. 

Zulema gives her a small laugh, amused, before dropping her head to, at last, let her tongue roam through the blonde’s center with a deep slow lick. 

The sound that leaves Macarena’s mouth almost makes her toes curl in pleasure, a hum leaving her lips as she starts making gradual circles where the blonde needed the most — soft moans reaching her ears with each turn. 

Lifting her gaze once again, Zulema watches the woman above her as she brings her hand closer to her chin, teasing the blonde’s entrance for a second before aggressively sliding two fingers inside her.

Macarena lets out a prolonged moan, her hips instantly rolling to meet with the brunette’s thrusts — fast and angry — making her fingers sink deeper, sending wave after wave of pleasure through her body as a red-hot coil started to tighten inside her stomach. 

Fingernails start gripping down her shoulders as Zulema picks up the pace, knowing the woman was already close. The brunette fucks her until she can feel the blonde get wetter, her hips wilder, and the muscles of her arm and jaw starts burning up — ignoring the pulsating pain Macarena’s nails were leaving on her shoulder as she penetrated her even harder.

Suddenly, the sound of a deep loud moan fills the room as an orgasm flows through the blonde’s body, mouth opened in pleasure, her eyes squeezing shut as she feels the delirious waves course through her. 

Zulema waits until Macarena lets out a sigh to stop her movements — giving her one last long lick before parting from the woman, sitting back on her heels to watch her.

The blonde takes a while to feel the haze that had wrapped itself around her mind dissipate, every inch of her body relaxing completely against the soft mattress bellow her. Once she starts thinking clearly again, she opens her eyes to find the brunette on her feet by the end of the bed, pulling her shirt over her head.

“Where are you going?” She asks, confused.

“Go to sleep, rubia.” Zulema says instead, not bothering to glance at her as she opened the bedroom’s and got out, leaving the blonde to lay by herself on the very suddenly cold bed.

Macarena frowns at the space the brunette had stood, mind turning on itself as she tried to imagine what exactly made the woman simply leave without allowing her to even touch her. 

Letting out a sigh, the blonde decides to simply let Zulema be, mentally categorizing the moment as one that she simply didn’t have the knowledge — nor energy — enough to even begin to understand. 

Closing her eyes, Macarena turns on her side to a more comfortable position on the bed, wrapping the blanket over her naked body before closing her eyes — peaceful sleep, finally, taking hold of her. 

_— - —_


	2. آمل أن أنسى

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A collection of whispers coming from the inner workings of our minds and soul._
> 
> _The quiet lake that we frown at the twisted reflections staring back at us._
> 
> _Sometimes it's our deepest desires. Sometimes, our deepest fears._
> 
> _Blending in._
> 
> _(Dreams)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_(I am hoping to forget)_ **
> 
> As you guys noticed, I’m inserting some different languages in the story, I plan to translate everything that isn’t Spanish in this area.
> 
> (A special thanks to Farah, the angel that’s helping me with the translations in Arabic.) 
> 
> The chapters that have Arabic titles are more Zulema centric, I have plans of bringing her perspective a bit more into this story. 
> 
> As always, thank you all for your patience, I hope this (actually, quite long) chapter is worth the wait <3
> 
> Ah, and the beginning of this chapter has a little "heavy" scene, so, brace yourselves.

Zulema had an arm stretched forward, palm facing the bright blue sky above her as her fingers played with the light rays that were warming up her skin, making the sun dance in between the gaps as if it were a coin rolling through the back of her knuckles — the white burning star appearing and disappearing as she moved them. 

The sand was hot against her skin as she laid on her back, honey eyes squinting to see through the blinding light around her. She had never been too fond of beaches, but today, she oddly had found herself in one. 

Slender fingers change into a make-shift gun when she catches the sight of a bird cutting through the clouds above her — no, a plane — one eye closing as she pretends to fire against the object, soft blowing sounds coming out of her mouth. 

Her counterfeit manslaughter is interrupted when a figure starts occupying her vision. 

“What are you doing?” Macarena asks her, giving her a confused smile. 

The blonde was on all-fours on the sand above her, casting a shadow over her face as she stared down at the brunette bellow her — head tilted slightly to the side as she visually tried to make sense of the woman’s intentions. 

“Humans are troubled creatures.” Zulema says, instead of answering. “When they are not busy destroying each other, killing for the smallest reasons, they are creating machines that can fly a thousand miles away from the ground.” 

Macarena frowns at her.

“Not even something as powerful as a thunder storm is capable of making it fall.” She finishes, letting her arm drop down beside her body.

The blonde stares at her for a couple of seconds before a smirk starts curling around her mouth. “It took me much less than that to fall for you.” 

Zulema pauses, her expression turning blank despite the space underneath her skin beginning to hum with that familiar song that resonated inside her each time Macarena would stare at her for a second too long.

Noticing, the blonde lets out an amused laugh before leaning her head forward to lay a warm kiss on her mouth — the movement a bit strange due to the position of their faces, but her heart skips a beat, nevertheless.

Macarena gives her bottom lip a gentle bite before creating a distance between them, lifting herself to sit back on her heels. Zulema follows the blonde's eyes by turning on her stomach, resting herself on her elbows to give her an amused smirk.

“Will you stay laying down there the whole day?” Macarena asks her, hand lifting to twirl a blonde lock in between her fingers. “The sea is right there.” 

Raising a brow as an answer, Zulema turns to sit up on the sand. 

Brushing the stubborn fine grains that had accumulated on the back of her arms, she rests her elbows on top of her knees as she admires the sea glowing underneath the sun in front of them. 

The blonde stands, taking a fews steps to contour her before entering her line of vision with a sly smile on her lips, head tilting down to meet her eyes. 

“Join me.” Macarena insists, her voice ever so soft. She stretches one hand forward for the woman to take, her fingers wiggling, instigating the brunette to take them. 

Zulema stares at her for a second before letting out an amused snort, biting her bottom lip to prevent herself from forming a full blown smile at the woman. 

Knowing a breach when she sees one, Macarena widens her own grin, lifting her brows as the brunette bellow her visually starts to give in — strong will dissolving underneath the luscious heat around them. 

Rolling her eyes, Zulema closes her fingers around the blonde’s waiting hand, being lifted to her feet by a strong pull. 

Macarena was giving her a satisfied smile, enjoying how she actually managed to convince the older woman in doing what she wanted — thumb caressing the skin inside her hold for a moment before dropping their hands. 

“You know what this is reminding me?” The blonde asks her.

Zulema merely hums at her absentmindedly as she tries to remove the annoying sand from the back of her ass. 

She _hated_ sand. 

Reminded her of home. 

“Morocco.” 

The brunette lifts a brow at the memory. “Our first vacation together. Honeymoon worthy.” 

Macarena chuckles at her.

“Yes. You didn’t need much convincing to swim back then.” The blonde teases — hand closing around the brunette’s once more as her feet started to move, pulling Zulema by the arm towards the water.

Reaching the wetter sand, Macarena lets her hand go to shorten the distance between her and the sea with a run — body falling into the ocean with laughter bubbling out of her mouth, making the corner of Zulema’s lips curl as she watches her.

“Venga!” The blonde calls, smiling so beautifully at her. 

The sweetest of all temptations. 

Zulema’s feet start walking with a will of their own, ankles reaching the cold waves with a shiver. Macarena was standing just a couple of meters ahead of her, water up to her waist, chuckling as her hands made a small curtain of droplets rain towards her. 

The brunette starts closing the distance between them, pushing the wet sand to force her way forward, waves hitting her stomach in a freezing caress. After a couple of minutes trying to get near, she stops, noticing she hasn’t moved a single centimeter — Macarena still seemed far away. 

Quite suddenly, a ravaging noise cuts through the blissful sound of the blonde’s laughter, making Zulema’s breath hitch at the base her throat. 

Thunder.

Lifting her gaze up, green eyes meet the space above her with a crippling worry rolling inside her stomach. Long gone were the soft blue sky, with its warming sun rays kissing gently their skin. Heavy clouds were occupying the scene with a consuming velocity, devouring every inch of light as they formed a thick blanket on top of their heads, promptly darkening the beach around them. The air started to carry an electric atmosphere, static biting the tip of her fingers as she visualizes a furious lighting cut through the cloud’s angry heart. 

_They needed to leave._

Looking back down, Zulema feels a flash of fear course through her chest when she finds herself standing alone in the water.

“Maca?” She tries, head glancing around, trying to catch a glimpse of blonde hair, but to no vail. 

Macarena had disappeared.

Turning around, Zulema starts moving back to the beach, frowning when she realizes it was a much harder task than she remembered. Her thighs burning with the effort to battle through the suddenly dense liquid — enough to work up her breathing, coming out in short gasps as she forced her way through the thick water.

Sweat started to accumulate around her hairline by the time she finally decided to stop and rest — the beach not a single feet closer than before. 

Taking a deep breath to calm down the rushed heart inside her thorax, Zulema raises a hand to brush the droplets dripping down on her forehead — letting out a frighted gasp when her fingers enter her line of vision.

They were covered in blood.

In fact, almost every inch of her body from the waist down was. 

The sea was no longer the crystal clear water glimmering underneath the glowing sun, but miles and miles of dark crimson blood surrounding her, turning almost black underneath the obscure heavy clouds swallowing the sky above her, harshly contrasting against the paleness of her skin. 

“You caused this, you know?” A voice mutters, the tone low, but the wind was swift enough to carry those particular set of chords in a cold silver plater, crossing the distance between the shore and her ears with a harmful whisper — aggressively entering her eardrums before sinking down and wrapping itself around her heart in a merciless squeeze. 

Zulema tentatively raises her head towards the familiar voice, every inch of her body shivering — knowing full well _who_ her eyes were going to meet.

_Fátima._

Her daughter was standing alone by the beach, bare feet sinking into the wet sand, staring at her. Fátima’s face was blank as the chilling crimson waves crashed against her ankles, turning the bright yellow edges of her Cruz del Norte uniform into a dark stain, climbing up the fabric of her pants. 

“All this blood.” Fátima continues. “Mine is in there too.” 

Zulema feels the back of her eyes burn as she watches her daughter take a step forward, entering the bloody waters. Her pale hands were brushing against the surface, fingers being painted red as she shortens the distance between them. 

“It is your fault.” The girl says, closer. “ _My death._ ”

“Do you want this same fate for her, too?” Fátima asks, finally near enough for her breath to reach the cold skin of her mother’s cheeks, face merely a few inches away. 

“Macarena?” A gash.

“And her baby?” Another.

Zulema feels herself grow extremely still, heart coming to an abrupt stop inside her chest. A tear runs down the older brunette’s cheek as she tries to avert her gaze from the figure in front of her, feeling her entrails tear open with each word, leaving a pulsating wound behind. 

“Kill them? Like you killed me?” Fátima pushes, her voice building up into a growl. 

Pale hands lift to wrap themselves around her neck, forcing her mother's head to face forward and meet her eyes once again “Death follows wherever you go.” The girl hisses, squeezing her fingers tighter.

“Maybe it's time she catches up to you.” She grunts, before shoving Zulema backwards, sinking her down into the thick blood — the liquid infiltrating into her mouth and nose uninvited, brutally forcing their way inside her lungs, occupying every inch, making it impossible to breathe. 

The second she starts feeling her body burn with the lack of oxygen, Zulema’s eyes bust open with a choking gasp — abruptly waking up. Her heart was slamming inside her chest as she roamed her gaze through the room around her, green eyes searching for any trace of a pale face, bright yellow uniform and a red horizon.

Finding none, Zulema sits up in bed to take a deep breath, passing a hand through her face — harshly — the brief pain on her skin becoming a reminder of her awakened state. 

Mentally cursing the wicked nature of her own mind, she lets out a sigh, turning her head to watch the asleep figure beside her. 

Macarena was laying on her side, facing her, one arm wrapping around the pillow that was supposed to go underneath her head. Her body was bare, being partially covered from the waist down by the soft blanket they had bought the day prior. 

A low gusty snore was coming out of her lips as her shoulders gently moved up and down, following the oscillation her breathing. From her position, she could see the purple trail of bruises her lips had left the night before, the sight stirring the familiar heat inside her chest. 

Lifting a hand, Zulema traces a slender finger on the blonde’s forehead — barely a touch — close enough to gently brush a few locks away from her face before pulling it back into her lap, forming a fist to contain the sudden tingling she started to feel in the curve of her palms. 

After promptly fucking the blonde last night, she had simply left to sit at their dining table, occupying herself with her brand new bottle of tequila and the systematical process of cleaning the two pistols and riffle they had brought along with them after facing Emílio’s herd of imbeciles. 

Zulema had sat in that table until she had felt her eyes burn, her fingers numb, and the back of her neck tense up before she rose and laid herself beside Macarena on the bed. She had stared at the back of the blonde’s head until her brain had finally succumbed to exhaustion, heavy eyelids finally closing with a trace of hesitation whispering at the back of her mind — knowing exactly what was waiting for her the second she closed them.

She had nightmares about Fátima before. 

Back in prison. 

It was no surprise to see her daughter’s face haunt her dreams overnight. After reading everything she could about basic psychology to gain Susana Tamayo’s confidence in one of her many escape attempts, the inner workings of the subconscious became something pretty clear to her. 

All psychological traumas originate from stress, as a response to an unpleasant stimulus. And, surely, hearing and seeing your own daughter’s head smash against the concrete floor wasn’t among the most peaceful events to experience. 

Zulema strongly presses the space between her eyebrows as she forcefully pushes that particular set of images to the back of her mind. During the time she had spent in solitary — after Fátima’s death — they had started blending in with the reality around her. 

Inside a three-by-three meter cement box, the body might feel trapped, but the mind never stops running. Ten days were more than enough for her brain to begin shifting the room of her cell — turning dark corners into silhouettes. Familiar shadows, moving in front of her eyes, dancing to the tune of her violent memories. 

Outside solitary, initially, very little had changed. 

Apparently, once you become an _hija de puta_ , every inch of your own body starts acting like it. After laying down inside her brand new prison cell, her mind had decided to torture her in a completely different way by reliving Fátima’s death each time she closed her eyes — shadows no longer roaming the room around her, but the back of her eyelids. 

The first time she had felt silence within her mind had also been the first night she had felt Macarena’s taste linger on her lips. 

It had surprised her in more ways than one to have her dreams infested with the blonde’s soft hair on her hands and her soft moans on her ears that first night. Sleep for more than four hours had felt divine, orgasmic — a red flag had been raised inside her mind almost instantly. 

A warning, pretty similar to the ones she usually read at the back of her cigarette packages. 

High risk of addiction. 

Zulema should have know she would loose control with Macarena. Most addictions start with deliberate steps. Her’s had been no different. 

Every night since that first time, she had visited the blonde’s bed. Slithering through her sheets, warm lips meeting a cold neck. She never asked. She never needed to. Macarena used to greet her with a hungry kiss, hands pulling on her uniform, forcefully making her way inside — taking over. 

A measured moan here, a contained thrust there, and Zulema would return to her own bed. All self-restrained, until the inevitable happened and she started craving it — yearning the feeling of Macarena’s skin underneath her fingertips, her taste on her tongue, and her gasps caressing the bed of her ears. Sinking deep into the waters that she had tried so hard to contain herself from entering. 

And how deep had she sank.

Last night, however, Zulema had expected a break of pattern. 

The second the trailer’s wheels had marked that clearing’s unmoved soil she knew she would have those dreams once again. 

Too many memories.

Despite having Macarena’s touch roaming over her skin, that clearing had formed the perfect atmosphere to resurge old echoes, triggering painful alarms inside her head — relentlessly tearing open all the wounds Zulema had thought she had sealed shut. 

Wounds she had hoped to forget.

But, apparently, fate had other plans for her. 

Letting out a sigh, Zulema hastily sweeps a hand over her face once again before throwing the blanket to the side, swigging her legs out to rise on her feet. The trailer’s wooden floor was cold underneath her toes as she made her way outside the bedroom, stepping to the side to curl a hand around the bathroom’s doorknob. 

The washroom was large, considering the place it was located. Right in front of her, there was a fiberglass bathtub glued to the far off white wall — wide enough to permit a full grown adult to clean themselves in the built-in shower-head without much stress. Beside it, there was a simple porcelain toilet, its material matching with the plain sink that stood next to the door. 

Zulema makes a quick work out of her clothes, letting the fabric drop in a pile near the sink before casting a glance over herself — green eyes tracing every inch with an analytical look. She feels a smirk ghost over her mouth when she catches the sight of the angry scratches that were tracing the pale skin of her back. 

_Macarena had always enjoyed to mark things that weren’t hers._

The brunette thinks as she turns to step inside the shower head, rotating the handle to the hottest temperature possible to wash away the furtive little thoughts that were whispering in her ears that said markings were precisely where she longed them to be.

Bending down, Zulema finishes tying a secure knot on the laces of her left boot before dropping her foot down from the couch’s corner to the floor, straightening herself back up with a hand brushing down the wrinkles of her hoodie. 

It was new, and still smelled like it. She doesn’t remember the last time she had experienced brand-new clothes. 

Briefly nodding her head, the brunette steps forward to open the cabinet above the kitchen sink, green eyes falling on the brown paper bag folded in its interior. 

Zulema purses her lips for a second before closing a hand on the package, unwrapping it to reveal the remaining couple of hundred euros stashed inside it, along with the breathtaking necklace they had battled so hard to achieve. 

Mentally shrugging off the memory of Macarena’s mistrust, the brunette stuffs the paper bag deep within her hoodie’s pockets before stretching a hand forward to pull the countertops’ drawer open, retrieving the prepaid phone she had bought yesterday in one of the many shops they had passed through. 

Turning, she takes hold of the trailer’s keys, pausing briefly to also pocket her cigarette packet before opening the front door to make her way outside into the chilly morning air — lifting the hood over her head as she takes a deep breath.

There were lots of things to be done. 

— - —

Zulema takes a deep drag of her cigarette before throwing the bud on the dry grass underneath her boots, twisting a heel to put out the dying flame as green eyes carefully watched the familiar looking grey car approach her.

She had been waiting for an hour.

After walking the annoyingly long passage from the clearing to the main road — a process that had made her face the slim extent of her physical condition by working up a humiliating breath — she had rested her back against a lone lamppost, a hand reaching backwards to retrieve the prepaid phone inside her pocket, pressing the small keyboard with the almost forgotten number before curling the device against the curve of her ear to listen the periodic ringing of the call. 

The brunette counted five rings inside her head before a groggy voice answered. 

_“Who the fuck is it?”_

“Rafid, it’s been a while — Zulema replies — Working early?”

The line grows silent for a moment, only the sound of hustling sheets reaching her ears — the younger man sitting up in bed, she assumes — before Rafid opens his mouth.

_“I thought you had died, Zulema.”_ He confesses, apprehensive. 

“And leave such a good friend like you behind?” Zulema starts, her lips splitting into a humorless smile “No, _imposible_. Especially when we have _so many_ great memories together.”

Rafid sits quietly to himself as he anxiously waits for the other shoe to drop.

“Ah, there’s this one that its my favorite — she continues, her voice shifting into an enthusiastic tone — Makes me shiver to this day.” 

“A few years ago. Mid June. Hanbal, me, you and your father’s body burning in front of us — The brunette hums in pleasure — Such a fun evening. Do you remember, Rafid?” 

“ _What do you want, Zulema?”_ The man audibly swallows, fear crippling up his throat. 

“I woke up feeling pretty sensitive today. You know how women are. Happy, sad, sí, no, sí, no, sí, no — She takes a deep breath, an amused smirk taking over her face — Thought I'd call and reach out. Reestablish old bonds.”

“ _It’s very bold of you calling out favors after what Karin did with my men.”_

Zulema roams a tongue over the front of her teeth, lips briefly pursing with displeasure as her mouth suddenly fills up with the bitter taste that particular set of memories carried. 

“Karin is not a problem anymore.” The brunette replies, smiling ironically. “You know what they say, Rafid. New year, new me. A perfect moment to cut people off your life.” 

The man lets out a muted gasp — his sudden intake of breath loud enough to reach Zulema’s ears in the form of a winning smirk on her mouth.

The message was clearly understood.

_“What do you need?”_

“And you want all this, _today_?” Rafid asks her, placing both his hands on top of the glass counter that stood between them as he raised a pair of surprised brows at her.

After giving him her address, Zulema had simply laid back against the lamppost,placing a cigarette on her lips and curving a hand in front of her face to protect the flame of her lighter from the swift chilly wind, burning the tip on before taking a deep drag. 

Waiting.

It had took Rafid almost her entire cigarette packet for him to arrive at her location — his grey sedan parking in front of her with a screech, ancient break disks screaming for mercy as they forced the old carcass into a stop. 

He had simply rolled down his window to give her an impatient look before unlocking the passenger door.

The ride to his old shop had been expectedly quiet and unexpectedly short — the familiar lefts and rights resurfacing into her mind even before Rafid had turned the wheel. 

His jewelry was located in a poor looking neighborhood, deep within a street narrow enough to only fit a single car per time. The shop was simply one of the many decorating the tight corridor, its bright yellow color surprisingly blending in just fine with the scenario. 

_A scheme._

Zulema had thought as she stepped out of the marijuana infested car, lips curling in distaste as she stared at the color the old fragment of her past had turned into. 

She had always considered Rafid to be an intelligent person. 

Despite his terrible taste in painting, the jewelry was perfectly hidden underneath the boring looking facade, promptly forcing the distracted eye to glance right through without calling attention to itself. An ingenious play, in her opinion. After all, when one starts working with extremely valuable pieces, every caution becomes not enough. 

Rafid had become a resource, back when she used to perform heists with Hanbal. The arab man was known to be fast and — clearly — discreet enough to not turn any heads. 

The brunette bites her bottom lip to seal shut the old unpleasant memoirs before bringing her attention back to the man in question standing across the glass counter in front of her. 

“For old times sake.” She answers him, shrugging at the astonished look Rafid was throwing at her.

“Zulema, I haven’t even glanced it right yet and I can already tell that these — he waves a hand to the necklace laid out in front of him — will give me loads of trouble.”

The brunette purses her lips at him, not enjoying his cold feet. 

Noticing, the man lifts a palm up “Look, a jewel this refined only means it comes from a really important owner. Important owners are trouble. And trouble doesn’t really sell.” 

Zulema throws her head back to stare at the man with a pair of squinted eyes, watching him squirm for a second “Spit it out, Rafid.” The brunette says with a gesture of her hand, growing impatient. 

The man lets out a frustrated sigh before brushing a few dark locks away from his forehead. “I _can_ sell this. But I’ll need to recut them. Hide their original shape. That means the value drops down to half.”

“Not counting your ten percent tax.” The brunette complements with an ironic smile, green eyes glowing underneath the low warm glow coming from the chandelier hanging above their heads. 

“It’s what I can do, this quickly. I can give you the money right now. Otherwise, it will take me months to find a buyer willing to risk their necks enough to acquire this thing uncut.” 

Zulema slowly bends forward to rest her elbows on top of the counter, gaze never leaving Rafid’s as she gives him an analytical look — reading him. He had been a reliable source all those years ago, but time changes everything.

Squinting her eyes at him, she mentally counts the droplets of sweat that were accumulating around his forehead, waiting until she reaches at least a dozen before giving him a sharp nod, finding no trace of ill intention. 

She — _they_ — truly didn’t have the time to wait for a buyer.

Letting out a relieved sigh, Rafid opens a drawer to retrieve a delicate looking tool — a piece she has seen many times. Placing the magnifying glasses on top his nose, he curls a hand around the necklace to lift the diamonds near to his face, analyzing it. Turning the jewels around, he hums quietly underneath his breath as he gives the piece a close inspection from every angle.

With a nod, the man places the necklace inside the opened drawer along with the magnifying glasses, pushing it closed as he makes a few mental calculations — rising to his feet after, apparently, coming into a conclusion, his thin legs disappearing through a door. 

Zulema straightens herself to rest a hip on the glass counter, green eyes glancing the room around her as she waits for the younger man to come back. 

Ten years. 

It has been practically ten years since the last time she had stood underneath this roof. 

The once varnished yellowish walls were slowly decaying with the humidity that the southern winter winds carried every years end — bit by bit, revealing the bricks underneath it. Frayed carpets were scattered around the wooden floor, timidly covering parts that have been worn out after years of receiving the stopping feet of a diverse client list. 

Life never stopped moving. Passing by like an ocean, consuming — wave after wave — even the mightiest of memories. Eroding even the strongest of wills.

The brunette lets out a bitter snort, mentally laughing at the irony of the situation. 

All those years ago, she was entering this very same shop alongside the man she had considered the love of her life at the time. 

And now, here she was. 

Waiting for the cash she had earned by performing an heist with the woman whose family she had sold his life to. 

The price of selling the love of your life for freedom is to suddenly find yourself surrounded by a pool of mud, slowly sinking — darkness lethargically encompassing you completely, until there was no glimpse of that beloved blue sky, nor the bright sun warmly kissing your skin.

Zulema had thought that particular part of her had died that day. 

And yet.

Fate always had the uttermost pleasure in proving her wrong. Truly, a bitch. With a sense of humor so sadistic that if she could, Zulema would mockingly bow, hands clapping in praise for the amount of effort it had made to properly fuck her over. 

It was a complete ingenious move to bind her path with Macarena’s that tightly. 

Zulema was extremely aware of her growing affections for the blonde. Of course she was. She could feel it, coursing through her veins. Evolving like a cancer, but backwards. Instead of crippling decay, it was changing her insides, replacing old flesh with brand new, turning open wounds into rough looking scars. 

The feeling was conquering ground, uncontrollably expanding with each day, slowly taking hold of her until every part of herself knew the sensation of Macarena on her life by heart, and it craved. 

Most ardently. 

Time, truly, changed everything. 

But. 

There were some lines she was simply unwilling to cross. 

Despite that every inch of her skin was humming to give in to the blonde’s touch, there was a deeper part of her mind that was holding her back. The same chilling voice that has kept her alive all through these years — whispering, in a tone so cold she could feel her heart stop. 

_This won’t last._

Soon, Macarena won’t desire this life anymore. This life with _her._

Zulema remembers quite vividly how a pregnancy affects a woman. The second her eyes had met Fátima for the first time was also the first time she had understood what it truly meant to have your own heart beat outside of your chest. She had loved her daughter more than anything in this world. 

With rubia, it will be no different. 

The brunette never lied to her. She _was_ willing to handle whatever curve ball that pregnancy would eventually throw at them. In addition to the fact she was responsible for the abortion of Macarena’s first child, the blonde had been the mind behind the scheme that had set her free. Zulema owed her at least that.

But. 

Macarena, in due time, will do anything to keep her child safe. And their current life was not. 

_She_ was not. 

And, even if the thought of her leaving made her insides twist with pain, Zulema would not stand in her way. Not anymore. 

It would reveal too much. 

Some natures are too stubborn to change.

“Here.” 

Zulema whips her gaze up from the spot on the floor that she had been promptly scorching with her eyes to find the younger man entering the room with two large duffle bags in his hands — his red face signalizing the amount of effort the act was actually taking. 

Letting out a grunt, Rafid arduously places the both of them on top of the glass counter — tanned wrists twilling to relieve the tension the overwhelming weight had accumulated on his joints. After a few turns, the man takes a deep breath, one finger stretching forward as he opens his mouth.

“There are approximately sixteen million euros in here. Around eight million each bag. In five hundred bills, as you prefer.” Rafid explains, bending his torso over the counter to pull down the zipper of one, revealing the desired purple paper stashed inside.

“Use it wisely.” He compliments, his palms facing up, gently bowing in a gesture that silently exclaimed ‘enjoy’ to the brunette.

Zulema watches the cash in front of her with a familiar thrill rolling up in her stomach — veins pumping up with excitement as she lifts a hand to feel the thin material underneath her fingertips. 

_Finally._

Flashing the arab a smirk, Zulema takes a wad of money out of the bag before placing it against the glass counter between them — one slender finger pushing the cash forward, crossing the small distance towards the man.

“For your car keys.” The brunette smiles, merely a baring of teeth. 

Rafid’s eyebrows vanish underneath his dark fringe as he gives her an incredulous look, not really believing his ears. It never ceased to amaze him how far Zulema always managed to push the situation in her favor. 

Letting out sigh, he sinks his fingers inside his jean’s pocket, retrieving his keys. 

He wanted to sell it, anyway. 

Stretching the piece forward, he offers it for the brunette to take. Rafid waits for the woman to grasp around the keys before closing his grip around her fingers, swiftly holding her hand in place — green angry eyes flashing up to meet his gaze.

“We are even now, Zulema.” Rafid starts, holding her glare. His voice had dropped down to a low even tone, growing dead serious. “Don’t show your face here again.” 

Despite the fear Rafid had always felt for the woman after she had helped him get rid of his abusive father, he wouldn’t cross that line. She was in disadvantage at the moment, and he refused to let her sink him back down into her darkness. 

“Or I’ll rat you out myself.” He finishes, giving the older woman one more prolonged stare before releasing the keys and letting her hand go.

Zulema tightens her fingers around the keys with a tongue roaming over the front of her teeth, not enjoying the taste of that threat. 

She doesn’t move right away, taking her sweet time to scan the younger man from head to toe — mentally picking apart that sentence as she watches him take a step back from the counter, his arms rising to cross over his chest. 

The brunette wasn’t a person that took threats lightly. Usually, the first mistake most people made was to underestimate them, depending on who it was delivered.She did no such thing. After all, it was often the smallest spark that started the fire. 

And Zulema was promptly sick of fires. 

Rafid, however, wasn’t even warm enough to be considered a sparkler. She knew him enough to know it was merely a bluff. 

But, she would do as he asked. It was already in her plans never to return. The past belonged in the past. 

_And it should stay that way._

Forming an ironic smirk on her face, Zulema gives the man a short nod in acknowledgment before placing the straps of each bag over her shoulders, effortlessly supporting their weight as she starts making her way outside — stepping across that familiar looking threshold one last, and final, time. 

— - — 

Letting out a grunt, Zulema bends over one last time to sink her shovel deep within the dark rich soil before throwing the collected dirt over to the side and into the hole — finally, fully covering it.

Balancing the tool over her shoulder, the brunette stomps her boot over the subtle elevation, flatting the terrain to completely hide the location of the duffle bag she had just buried. 

Straightening herself, Zulema wipes a pale hand over her forehead to remove the few droplets of sweat that had accumulated on her brow with the sudden physical effort. 

_She was truly out of shape._

The brunette thinks as she takes a deep drag of the cigarette that was placed in between her lips — burning smoke entering her lungs in a calm caress before leaving through her nostrils in a prologued exhale. Green eyes were carefully scanning the trees around her, mentally marking the landmarks deep inside her memory to create a visual map of the exact location of the duffle bag.

If life has taught her anything, is that it was always best to have a back up plan. Or, at least some money hidden away in case everything goes wrong.

With a nod, she throws the burned out bud on the ground before turning her back — silently counting her steps as she makes her way out of the woods and into the clearing, approaching the parked car.

_Twenty steps, in a straight line._

Reaching the trunk, she slams it open with a calculated kick — old hinges screeching as the rusty tailgate swiftly lifts, revealing the other duffle bag stashed inside it. Hurling the shovel in, Zulema lifts the bag over her shoulder before slamming the trunk closed with her elbow, feet crossing the small distance towards the trailer.

Closing the door behind her, the brunette glances around, green eyes searching the room. A few seconds later, her ears were the ones responsible to give her the answer she was looking for with the sound of soft snores coming through the bedroom door.

Macarena hasn’t wake up yet. It was still early, after all.

Stepping deeper inside the trailer, Zulema pauses right in front of their bedroom, a hand slowly lifting to trap a thumb in between her teeth as green eyes squinted at the wooden material — wheels inside her mind spinning. 

Thinking. 

Turning her face to the side, the brunette’s gaze falls on the dinning table on her left.

_Let’s see._

Taking a step forward, Zulema bends over to place the heavy duffle bag on top of the table, hands adjusting to let it sit right in the middle. In plain sight. 

Surely, the first thing Macarena will see the minute she comes out of their room.

A test.

Grabbing an apple from the fruit basket and a knife from the drawer, she makes her way back outside — closing the door loudly enough so she knew the blonde would eventually join her near the lake. 

Following the brunette’s not-so-quiet demand, Macarena’s eyelids flash right open the second the slamming sound reaches her ears — a gasp leaving her lips as she rises to her elbows almost instantly, glancing around to the room for any possible threat. 

Finding the bedroom devoid of any menace — even a certain assassin she started to feel comfortable with — Macarena lets out a prolonged sigh, palms roaming through her face in hope of brushing the sleepiness away. 

Dropping her hands back on the mattress, the blonde’s eyebrows rise to her hairline when she notices exactly where she was laying on. Apparently, she had moved in her sleep. Body no longer occupying her own chosen spot on the bed, but Zulema’s. 

The sheets were loaded with the brunette’s scent. She must have followed it, unconsciously. 

It should surprise her how profoundly the woman’s grasp had managed to reach inside her. 

But it didn’t. 

Falling in love for the brunette had been a process as infuriating as the woman herself — taking her entirely by surprise. Furtively. Her subconscious had embraced Zulema’s touch way before she had, with her mind whispering hidden truths on her ears as she slept, allowing the feeling to roam free inside her chest.

Sinking in. 

Lifting a hand, Macarena traces a finger on Zulema’s pillow as she recalls the previous hours they shared.

The blonde had felt the moment the older woman had returned to their bed — that familiar dip of the mattress was forever imprinted in her mind. 

It had been the second one that night. 

She doesn’t know what had made Zulema simply rise and leave without allowing Macarena to even touch her. 

Not that she wasn’t used to it. 

During their prison days in Cruz del Norte — initially — the brunette had obtained a custom pretty similar to what she had done the night before: touch her, please her, and return to her own spot on top of their shared bunk bed. 

No retributions allowed. 

After a few weeks, however, that had changed pretty quickly. 

She will never forget the sensation of touching a woman as shut off as Zulema for the first time. Similar to watching a lighting storm from up close: a marvel both astonishing and enchanting at the same time. Macarena’s only fear at the moment had been to blink and miss a single second of the brunette’s constrained moans — her frowning brows and parting lips in pleasure the moment she reached the right spot, making her go over the edge. 

Since then, the older woman’s body had been something she slowly carved into her mind each time the prison cell’s lights would turn off — memorizing it with both touch and taste, until she recognized every inch as if it were her own skin. 

Last night, however, something had changed. 

Macarena had noticed the brunette acting strange the moment they parked the trailer inside that clearing. The blonde may not understand the woman completely — after all, the process of figuring out which intention was shinning behind those green eyes had always been one that had given her an extent collection of headaches — but some reactions were as clear as water to her. 

Zulema’s pain had always been something that radiated right through, expelling like heat out of her body. The blonde could always see the invisible waves surrounding her — little mirages, dancing around her skin, silently swallowing her whole

Some emotions were too intense to hide. She had seen them, emanating from the woman's clothes. Both when they had arrived, and last night, when she had been left alone on their suddenly quite chilly bed.

Macarena traces her palm on the brunette’s pillow one more time as her mind flashes Zulema’s face the instant they had stopped their trailer beside that pond. Surely, there was something burning up behind those honey colored eyes, and she had a feeling she was going to feel its intensity pretty soon.

In the worst way possible.

Silently asking to whoever was listening to give her enough internal peace to face whatever the brunette might throw at her that day, the blonde turns around on the mattress, sitting up with a stretch — arms rising high in the air as she feels each vertebrate let out a tiny snap, deliciously falling back in alignment. 

She hasn’t slept that well in months. 

Letting out a snort on the reason why, she throws her legs out of the bed to rise on her feet — the wooden floor cold underneath her toes as she roams through the room, periodically bending over to catch the pieces of clothes Zulema had practically ripped off her body last night. 

After promptly redressing herself, Macarena steps towards their wardrobe to grab a clean shirt, jeans and underwear — intending on having a peaceful shower before facing the day and whatever it had in store for her.

An objective that vanishes of her mind the instant she opens the bedroom door. 

The blonde feels the familiar tension accumulate on the back of her neck when she notices her prayers had fallen into the wrong ears — offering her with quite the opposite she had asked in the form of a duffle bag strategically placed right in the middle of their dinning table.

Intentionally, for sure.

Hastily brushing a hand through her face, Macarena takes a controlled breath before lifting her gaze up and out the window, light eyes meeting the tall figure standing near the lake with the whisper of a headache starting to grow behind her skull.

Pressing the space in between her eyebrows, she forcefully swallows down the anger building deep inside of her before stepping towards the bathroom either way — deciding to leave that particular topic to deal after she had been properly cleaned.

Placing a kettle on the stove, the blonde rests a hip against the countertop while she waits for the water to boil — hand brushing the still wet hair off her eyes as she gives the bag on top of their dinning table an analytical stare. 

Needless to say she had checked each and every cabinet inside their kitchen — knowing full well she was doing a fruitless search, for she already knew she wasn’t going to find the piece she was looking for. And the reason why.

Zulema had sold the necklace. By herself. 

Of course she would, Macarena thinks bitterly, that’s what the brunette does. Run over the blonde’s head to do whatever she wanted was easy compared to the history of chaos she shared with the woman. 

That’s not what was making her frown. 

No. Something was buzzing inside her mind. A little devil, hissing at the back of her ears, stirring old mistrust inside her stomach with each rub of its lips. 

There was just _one_ duffle bag. 

She had checked. 

Macarena didn’t need to see to know there was barely enough money inside that bag to reach even a third of the price the necklace was actually worth. Which means, not only Zulema had managed to move her little strings behind her back, but also decided to do something else with the money.

And _that_ was an entirely different category of headache. 

Letting out a forced sigh, Macarena takes the screeching kettle out of the heat, pouring the scorching liquid inside two cups to brew the both of them some chamomile tea. God knows she was going to need something to calm her down before talking with the woman, so might as well try and dope whatever internal turmoil that was rolling inside the scorpion’s mind.

Momentarily balancing both cups on a single hand to open the door, Macarena steps outside the trailer and into the morning air — doubling her internal soothing mantra the moment she sees the woman had also bought them a car.

Taking a deep breath, she starts making her way towards the lone figure standing near the lake — the early breeze hitting her hate-induced warm cheeks with a chilly sting.

“Selling the necklace, getting us a car.” The blonde starts, one arm stretching out to offer the flaming cup of tea to the brunette beside her. “I can see you kept yourself busy, Zulema.”

Zulema’s gaze briefly flickers from the mug and back to Macarena’s eyes with a flash of surprise coursing through her face. Merely a glimpse, stoic blankness taking over not a second later. With the lift of a brow, the woman pockets the knife and the apple she was eating before curling slender fingers around the offered beverage, accepting. Face turning towards the lake once again. 

The brunette takes a while to answer — long enough to make Macarena wonder if she’s being left on stand by on purpose. Simply to annoy her a little more. 

They say dogs smell fear, but Zulema was a completely different type of bitch. She smelled frustration. And always had the uttermost sadistic pleasure in pressing all her buttons in the wrong way. Just to watch her squirm.

Truly, an _hija de puta_.

“Proactivity keeps the brain healthy.” The taller woman says, at last, taking a slow sip of her tea — eyes never leaving the dark water in front of them. 

Macarena lets out an incredulous huff, not really believing her ears. 

_And the day was only starting._

Gripping her mug a little tighter, the blonde takes a deep breath to control herself — choosing to focus her mind on the burning heat emanating from the hot liquid in her hold, hoping to distract herself from the growing frustration rolling inside her stomach. 

“Where’s the rest of the money, Zulema?” She forces, her tone sharp. Light eyes promptly scorching the brunette’s profile.

“That is all.” Zulema replies, simply. Not at all bothered by it. 

An ironic smile starts forming on the blonde’s face. “Zulema, even if the jeweler had cut the diamonds in half, we would still have more money than one duffle bag.”

The brunette gives her an indifferent shrug, lips pursing as she twirls the cup inside her hand. 

Macarena lets out a frustrated sigh, one hand passing through her hair — already regretting starting this whole partnership in the first place. 

“Zulema, por _Dios_ —” 

“I buried it.” Zulema cuts her off, face finally turning to the side to give the blonde an sarcastic look, sucking the front of her teeth to fade the bitter taste of telling the blonde the truth — an habit, she notices, that had become quite frequent after she started sharing a bed with the woman. “Never keep all your eggs in just one basket.”

“And you’re not telling me where, are you?” Macarena asks, already knowing the answer.

Zulema purses her lips before mockingly shaking her head in the universal language of a ‘no’.

“Claro.” The blonde snorts, a frustrated smile upon her face. Letting out a sigh, she briefly closes her eyes to roll her head to the side, wishing to relieve some tension that had started to accumulate on the back of her neck the instant she stepped out of their trailer. 

Zulema watches her movements with her head thrown back, gazing through her eyelashes as the woman in front of her visually tries to swallow her anger back down. The brunette waits until Macarena passes another hand through her hair — a nervous tick, she recalls — before opening her mouth.

“The diamonds you chose to steal were too clean.” She starts, giving an humorless smirk to the woman in front of her, merely a turn of corners. “Clean diamonds are traceable, like inserting a target in the fucking _culo._ No buyer wants that.” 

Macarena huffs — rays of suspicion shining through her mind. But she says nothing, nevertheless. 

“I went to a source, and he managed to hide their original shape. But the price went down by half.” 

“ _Half?_ ” The blonde exclaims, exasperated. 

Zulema merely hums at her.

“Enough for two duffle bags. One for our use — she continues, one finger gesturing to the both of them — and the other…” The brunette lets the words hang in the air between them, turning a sly grin to the woman standing beside her.

“For precaution.” Macarena completes, meeting her gaze with an irritated frown. “You thought of everything, haven’t you?” She mocks, one hand waving in front of her. 

Zulema gives her a thin smile before turning to watch the water once again, taking a sip of her almost cold tea.

Macarena keeps staring at the woman’s profile, light eyes analyzing every inch as she feels the good old anger buzzing from underneath her skin. 

Her own mug completely forgotten. 

She never gets used to this back and forth they did. Alternating periodically like a tide, with its ups and downs — waves of hate and affection, switching each time, hitting her straight in the chest. Both with enough intensity to let her drown, if she allowed. 

It was ironic to think that the same woman who had left a trail of fervent kisses down her neck the night before was also the same one that she was containing herself from slapping that fucking smirk off her face. 

After last night, there was no denying that the older woman felt something. 

Both of them did. 

Even now, with all the irritation burning up inside her stomach, she could feel it. The familiar ache, coursing inside her veins. A feeling, longing for her to reach out and trace the soft pale skin of Zulema’s cheek. Sink her hands deep within those dark locks to pull her close — ripping that smirk off her face, not with a slap, but with a kiss. 

The law of karma refers to the law of cause and effect: that every volitional act brings about a certain result. In essence, with every choice, there’s a consequence. After many years of being Zulema’s enemy, she was certain hers was to despise the woman as intensely as she craved her. 

The same emotion, but with two sides. Forged on a single coin, constantly flipping between its faces, with even probability of falling on either head or tails. 

Hate or love. 

Love has always been one of the most wicked games of luck. And she never had much luck in the first place. 

Letting out a sigh, Macarena roams a hand through her hair once again, eyes briefly closing as she feels the beginning of tiredness stirring inside her muscles. A sensation she will need to get used to, apparently, as they were getting more frequent. 

Perks of being pregnant. 

“During breakfast, I wanted to discuss our first heist with you.” The blonde says, at last, eyelids opening to find the taller woman giving her an indifferent shrug, taking another sip of her, most certainly cold, tea — keen eyes never leaving the black water.

Giving the woman a short nod, Macarena shifts her own gaze to the lake as well, admiring its dark surface for a moment. 

She briefly wonders why Zulema seemed so fascinated by it before turning on her heels, mind occupying itself with the extremely short menu of things she knew how to cook — deciding to be the one to prepare their food that day. 

There was a lot they needed to talk about. 

“And this is your big plan?” Zulema asks from her position by the dining table, one leg carelessly thrown over its surface while she gently laid a pair of intertwined hands over the space of her lower abdomen. One brow was lifting in question as she gives the woman standing by the stove a questionable look. 

Rolling her eyes, Macarena rests the spatula on the corner of the pan, turning the heat off before meeting said look with a brow lifting of her own. “Robbing a bingo seems the perfect way to start. The crowd is old.” The blonde defends. 

After she had stepped inside their trailer, Macarena had began assembling the easiest breakfast she could think of: omelettes. Zulema had entered through the door merely a few seconds after, placing herself on that spot on the table, listening quietly as the blonde divided her attention between trying not to burn their food and explaining the taller woman everything she had thought of so far.

The few months after leaving Cruz del Norte, her focus had been mainly centered around their most important heist: the necklace. Which was expected, considering the difficulties and dangers such heist could bring, and had brought. Even after seven months of planning, the whole thing had managed to turn into that snowball of mayhem they had experienced yesterday and the day before. 

However, along the weeks she had dedicated to think over that particular heist, Macarena had reserved some time to ponder about what she would do next. Initially, when Zulema — and everything she represented — was merely something she was trying to keep away inside a mental box to be forgotten, she had wondered which places were the easiest to rob alone. Certainly, a place where the crowd wasn’t going to be her main concern: a bingo.

With the brunette in the picture, the possibilities seem endless. She wasn’t stupid, she remembers quite vividly how the woman was a complete force of nature when it came to these type of things. Despite their bad history together, they made an excellent team together. 

And now, that the lines were blurring, she wonders where exactly that bond might take them. 

“A bingo?” Zulema asks, bringing her focus back to the present moment. 

Giving the woman an annoyed look, Macarena lifts her hands to open the top cabinet in front of her, retrieving two identical white plates from its interior before placing them on the countertop beside her, filling each one with a reasonable amount of egg.

“The clientele is majorly elder people, with more money than they know how to spend. If the bingo is not placed inside a cassino, then the security is mediocre, at best.” Macarena starts, placing the dirty pan inside the sink. Taking both plates into her hands, she approaches their dining table in two strides, pausing beside the brunette to give the leg thrown over the surface a dirty look — a silent demand.

With a sigh, Zulema drops the limb down, answering it, receiving a satisfied smirk from the blonde before she places the meal right in front of her. 

“And — Macarena continues, offering the woman a fork as she takes the remaining seat — since the police is searching for us, assaulting a place that the main entertainment is to poke little numbers on a paper sheet could give us enough breathing room before we try something more complex.” 

Zulema gives the woman in front of her a thoughtful glance — green eyes blinking between the offered fork and the blonde’s amused smirk with a squint. 

She must admit, it sounded like a well thought out plan. 

It doesn’t surprise her. After all, Macarena had truly become something else along the years. No longer the spoiled blondie searching for a prince charming to protect her, but an authentic hija de puta, with a mind that was starting to tick to a tune similar to her own. 

The brunette purses her lips to prevent a smirk of her own from forming on her mouth as she feels a wave of affection course through her. Noticing how similar they had actually become never failed to make her heart skip a beat or two.

Fate truly worked in ingenious ways.

Taking the stretched out fork into her hands, she ignores the blonde’s enlarged smile, taking a larger than necessary amount of food into her mouth, profoundly chewing as she gives the woman in front of her a look. 

Thinking. 

“Ay, vale.” Zulema says, at last — swallowing. “And where exactly are we performing this amazing plan?” 

“Don’t know yet.” Macarena answers with a small smirk, feeling amused for the fact the brunette was actually going along with her idea. “Thought we could use that car you got to search for a place.” 

“No need, there is a town a couple of hours down the road.” The brunette states, scrapping her plate clean with her fork. “I saw it when I left earlier today. Large enough to be worth our time.” 

Macarena nods at her, silently agreeing despite the whisper of frustration stirring inside her stomach when she’s reminded of the brunette’s constant need to control everything. Letting out a sigh, she finally takes a bite of her own food, forcefully swallowing down her annoyance along with the egg — choosing to simply go along for the moment, for the state of her own peace of mind. 

It had been a helpful insight, after all. 

For the past couple of minutes, she simply eats in silence. Zulema had finished hers quite quickly, intertwining her fingers to rest her chin while she waited for the blonde to finish her plate. There was a far off look on her face as she stared once again at the dark body of water laying calmly outside their window — thoughts, certainly, going somewhere else.

The blonde watches the woman carefully as she finishes cleaning her plate, wheels turning inside her skull. 

Zulema’s emotions had always been something the untrained gaze never caught easily. As swift as smoke dancing in the air, constantly changing, blending in with the environment around it before you could even manage to understand any familiar shape.

But she knew the woman long enough to know when there was something working up inside the scorpion’s mind. 

Before she could begin building up that assumption, Zulema turns her gaze back forward, noticing the blonde had finished eating. Rising to her feet, the brunette takes both plates into her hands before start walking towards the sink, intending on being the one on cleaning duty since the other had cooked. 

Macarena’s gaze follows the woman with a frown, watching as she wets the dishes under the tap’s open stream for a second before also rising to her feet, closing the distance between them with two slow steps, resting her left hip on the countertop beside Zulema once she comes near enough. 

Light eyes were burning holes on the brunette’s profile as her mind worked at the speed of sound — mentally flipping through her memories as she tried to make out what exactly was murmuring underneath the taller woman’s actions, opening her mouth when she’s reminded of a particular doubt that has been stirring deep inside her stomach the moment she closed her eyes the previous night. 

“Zulema?” Macarena starts, tentatively, one hand rising to twirl a blond lock around her fingers.

Zulema merely hums at her, absentmindedly, foaming up the dirty pan that has been used to make their breakfast.

“Why did you leave last night?” The blonde asks.

By luck, Macarena wasn’t blinking the moment the brunette’s face flashed with a peculiar emotion, pausing for only a heartbeat before the good old blankness returned — green eyes blinking up to meet the blonde’s gaze.

“Felt like stargazing.” Zulema answers, a thin smile upon her lips. “I’m an admirer of the stars. Such complexity.” 

Macarena snorts.

“That's not it.” She rebuffs, curling her hands around the countertop beside her hips to tilt her body forward, holding the taller woman’s gaze as she slowly closed the distance between their faces. “I know you, Zulema.” The blonde mutters, in a low tone, but it reaches the brunette’s ears with no problem — green eyes hardening underneath her stare. 

Despite the intensity burning inside her glare, Zulema stays silent, giving her nothing. 

“Qué ha pasado?” Macarena tries again, softer this time. 

The woman doesn’t give in, merely pursing her lips at her — keeping whatever that was troubling her to herself. 

_As expected._

Macarena thinks, with a mental sigh. 

Straightening herself, the blonde decides not to push the woman any longer, seeing no point in trying to force the truth out, especially when it came to someone as closed off as Zulema. 

She starts making her way towards their bedroom when her mind, quite suddenly, finally finds the right card to compare this situation to — flashing her thoughts with a delicate memory of a time back in prison, when she had seen a pattern similar to that one reflected in the woman’s intentions. 

A few days after Fátima had died.

Grief does crazy things to a person’s mind. She knows, she experienced. 

Macarena remembers quite vividly the way Zulema had sang almost every night during solitary — her serene voice quietly resonating in the air, passing through the air vents between the wall that separated them, cutting the silence of her own cell with a painful melody reaching her ears. 

Ten days might seem short, but inside a concrete box with no windows, rebreathing the same air your lungs had saturated in the first five minutes of isolation, ten days were an eternity. 

She had noticed that their time spent together in solitary had deeply affected Zulema merely a few hours after they had left it, in the form of her sleep being interrupted by said woman sitting on top of her, invading her bed for the first time. 

Back then, the brunette had done something pretty similar to what she had done that previous night in the trailer: touched her, and left. Initially, she hasn’t given that thought a deeper analyzation that it needed — after all, she knew the woman enough to know when not to poke that particular sleeping bear. But now, old patterns were filling up her mind, realization falling quite abruptly, and, before she notices, Macarena was opening her mouth.

“Zulema — she starts, slowly returning to her previous spot — are you thinking about Fátima again?” 

The words barely leave her lips when she feels her breathing cut short, a surprised gasp leaving her mouth as the taller woman abruptly wraps her hand around the blonde’s neck, forming a tight fist before harshly slamming her head against the top cabinet standing behind them.

“That’s none of your business.” The brunette hisses, a sharp sound, cutting through her clenched teeth. 

Instinctively, Macarena reaches backwards inside the sink to curl her fingers around a knife, rapidly pressing the utensil against Zulema’s side, meeting burning green eyes with equal intensity — her own amount of anger resurfacing inside her chest. 

“ _Oh, no?_ ” The blonde mocks, pressing the metal even harder. The brunette doesn’t even blink at it, holding her glare. “This became my business the second we started sharing a roof, Zulema.” 

A wicked tongue roams through the brunette’s mouth before she stretches her head forward, close enough that Macarena feels her warm breath gush over her own lips. “Listen, _imbecile_ , my thoughts, my problem.” She spats angrily. 

“You should have thought of that before choosing to escape with me.” The blonde spats right back, standing her ground. 

The room starts filling up with a suffocating tension around them as the blonde held Zulema’s stare in a scorching match. Cold droplets of water were dripping down from the woman’s grip around her neck, unnoticeably running through her skin as she counted the seconds in her head, mentally placing a bet on which one of them would be the first to let the bone go. 

Her victory comes a few shallow breaths later, an empty win, with Zulema tightening her hold for a moment — hard enough for Macarena start seeing black edges forming around the corner of her vision — before the brunette abruptly releases her with a throaty grunt, taking a step back. Zulema merely gives her a hard look before head towards the door and storm out of the trailer. 

The blonde waits until it fully swings shut before raising a hand to her neck, taking in a deep raspy breath. Light eyes follow the taller figure through the window, watching the woman step closer to the parked car, brutally getting in — the engine’s loud roar cutting through the silence as she leaves the clearing without ever looking back.

Macarena stares at the spot the brunette had stood for a moment more, feeling the remaining anger fade away with each beat of her heart — searing worry taking its place inside her chest.

The brunette didn’t need to say a single word to answer her question, the message came across quite clearly despite of it. 

Fátima was back in Zulema’s mind. 

And it was collapsing her from the inside.

— - —

“Are you being serious with me, Emílio?” Alexandra Cervantes asks from across the large marble table standing between her and the tanned middle aged man she called her husband. 

“What now, Alexandra?” The older man replies, one large hand raising to remove the fat Cuban cigar from his lips, dense white smoke coming out of his nostrils as he gives his annoying wife a tired look.

We was growing tired of these tantrums. 

“Are you seriously calling a search for another woman? After I just caught you sleeping with other three?” She exclaims, tilting her body forward to slam two perfectly manicured hands on top of the wooden material in frustration — the harsh sound reaching the older man’s ears sharply, deepening his annoyance. 

Emílio lets out a deep sigh, thick fingers pressing against the skin in between his eyebrows. “For the last time, that woman stole my property. Said property that was meant to be an apology to you.” He explains, waving a hand forward in his wife’s direction.

Alexandra huffs bitterly at him, straightening herself back up. “I don’t think the necklace is the property you are looking for.” She mutters, acidly, decades of constrained hate dripping down her lips. 

He meets her gaze with the familiar coldness settling inside his dead black eyes — the same shade she had seen many times before she had felt the nasty sting of a slap cut across her cheek.

Before he could do anything, however, the sound of a knock on the door cuts through the room. 

“Come in.” Emílio orders, mentally thanking for the interruption.

The heavy doors creak open to reveal a young man, late twenties, wearing a refined cut suit to match his occupation as personal guard of one of the most prestigious mob's boss that existed in Spain.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but this is classified as urgent, by your request.” 

Emílio turns an indifferent gaze back to his wife before waving the lad over, choosing to deal with her ridiculous jealousy at a different time. 

Alexandra watches him ignore her with a huff, giving the man she once loved a dirty look before storming out of the room, leaving to deal with his obsessions by himself.

She was tired of it.

The guard waits until the door fully shuts, for the sake of privacy, before turning to his boss with a file stretched forward. “You requested to warn you if we had any signs of a woman that fitted Bonnie’s profile.” 

Emílio takes hold of the offered file with a maleficent glint shining up inside his cold dead eyes.

“The cottage was burning by the time our men reached there, as you know. But the police has found two suspects of the case.” The guard explains, waving a hand to the open file in his boss’ hands. 

Turning a page to the side, Emílio’s eyes falls on a pair of prison mugshots. The pictures of two women wearing bright yellow uniforms were staring back at him with equally annoyed glares. He watches the one on the left with a familiar pleasure stirring inside his chest. 

He would recognize that face anywhere. 

“Is it them?” The guard asks.

“Yes.” Emílio confirms with a purr. “That’s my Bonnie. And that's woman that was with her that day.”

“Real names: Macarena Ferreiro and Zulema Zahir, sir. Criminals.”

“Sly ones, as a matter of fact. They took my necklace right from underneath my nose.” Emílio complains, but his voice still carried a pleased tune. Finally, he was one step closer to getting what he wanted. “Were they found?”

“No, sir. Police has put out a search warrant for them.” The guard explains, placing both hands behind his back.

“Them we shall too. I want your best men on this. If anyone catches sight of my Bo— Macarena, I want to know.” Emílio orders, never taking his eyes of the petite blonde that was glaring at him — one finger softly tracing her chin.

“Right away, sir.” The guard answers before stepping out of the room.

Emílio takes another drag of his cigar as his eyes scans every inch of the woman that had introduced herself as Bonnie. 

_He had always loved the difficult ones to chase._

He thinks with a smirk, letting the smoke come of his lips. 

And he always wins. 

— - —  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you guys can see, these two are fighting a lot. “Why?” You ask me. Well, I don’t believe Maca and Zuzu would enter a somewhat peaceful routine without exchanging a few sparks first, don’t you think? 
> 
> After all, there are a lot of tension in the air now, creating the perfect inflammable atmosphere for them to catch on fire. In both the angry way, and sexy way. 
> 
> The best sex scenes are the ones filled with hate…
> 
> And that’s a spoiler for you, gays.
> 
> Also, yes, I brought Emílio back. As I said I would. A lot will happen before he manages to wrap his dirty little hands on the life of our girls, so, stay on the edge of your seats. Lots in store planned for you guys. 
> 
> As always, I would love to know what you think! 
> 
> Warm hugs, dears <3


	3. Enterrando la Tristeza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Es una canción lejana, que relumbra en todas las cosas._
> 
> _(En el suelo)_  
>  _(En las paredes)_
> 
> _Puedes sentirla tú?_
> 
> _Porque a mí me va a reventar por dentro._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, dearests! 
> 
> This chapter contains a scene that is really important to this story. I am building up a stairway that will lead Zulema towards a path of healing and forgiveness for her past. After all, a war is found in more ways than one, and to achieve peace, our scorpion will need to battle that particular part of herself before being able to settle down with our rubita and their baby, peacefully. 
> 
> The scene I mean will be the first step of a long journey, which means, this is one of the saddest chapters of this story (one of the reasons it took me so long to write), so, prepare yourselves, my dears. I promise the ones after this will be much more fun and easy to read. 
> 
> Once again, thank you for your patience! I hope it was worth the wait! 
> 
> **Ps.** I noticed I wasn’t clear enough in the last chapter, but the Arabic titles will be translated in the notes like so:
> 
> **_(Title)_**
> 
> Right at the top! Just so you guys know! 
> 
> **Pss.** The summary I took is from Najwa’s character, Lila Cassen, in Quién te Cantará. Great movie, I highly suggest you guys watch it!

“What last name did you say, again, dear?” 

The old man asks, absentmindedly, as he takes the large book from underneath his desk. He was getting old, and never learned to deal with those stupid machines the young enjoyed to spent their whole day on. No, he enjoyed to write down all the burials they were responsible for with pen and paper. He felt more secure that way.

The brunette in front of him gives him an annoyed look, lips pursing in distaste. 

_Such impatient creatures were the women of this generation._

He thinks, placing the book on top of his table. It’s spine was old enough to automatically open itself right in the middle — worn down after years and years of being used to write down the names and dates of each family they entombed or sealed up inside their granite crypts. 

Along the first few decades, the register started to grow a preference to fall open right around the ‘M’ category. Probably due to the amount of ‘Maria’s Spain enjoyed to name their daughters, something about a preference for Christian names. 

The frowning woman in front of him had mentioned a religious name as well, he remembers, flipping through the pages to reach the ‘F’ category — thinking it was probably best to answer her already before her vivid green eyes started to scorch holes on his skin. 

Or worst, give him any more wrinkles.

“Zahir.” Zulema repeats, an ironic smile on her face, taking a deep breath to keep the anger at bay. After driving for hours in that junk piece of metal on wheels Rafid had called a car, her patience was growing thin faster than usual. 

“Zahir, Zahir…” The old man mutters, one thin finger tracing the yellowish pages as he looked for that particular weird last name.

“Ah. Here.” He exclaims, readjusting his half-moon glass lenses higher up his nose to read his chicken scratches of handwriting a little bit better. “Fátima Zahir. Burial arranged by the state. Performed around 10 months ago. Is this correct?”

“Yes.” She replies, monotone. 

“Well — He starts, closing the old book soundly — We usually sort out all the burials paid by the state in the same block, for better organization.” 

Zulema sinks her hands deeper into her hoodie’s pockets — fingers closing into a fist so tight she feels her nails breaking the skin of her palms.

“So, you should find a corridor right outside, on the left. Go straight, and you should enter the right place. Your Fátima is probably on the nearest wall.” He finishes, with a wave, already starting to focus his attention back at the crosswords placed upon his lap. 

He doesn’t see sharp nod Zulema gives him — green eyes shinning a deadly tint — before turning on her ankles and leaving the cemetery’s reception. 

Lifting her hood over her head, the brunette steps outside, instantly following the old man’s instructions. The morning’s cold air was hitting her cheeks with a chilling kiss as she makes her way around the reception to enter the side corridor he had mentioned. 

Zulema walks its entire length in a handful of strides, stopping for a moment at the end of it to glance at the open area in front of her. 

Under the obfuscating clouded sky, laid a vast courtyard, delimited by two high granite walls, covered in flowers. In them, each crypt was holding a personalized symbol to inform who may be resting inside — either with a special calligraphy or with a small statue, some more decorated than others.

In the end, they all end up in the same place, the brunette thinks, bitterly, as she watches the markings on the walls. Kept like a book on the shelf, accumulating dust as life continued to happen — swift as wind, changing in front of your eyes.

Still there will be summers, Navidades, and birthdays. Dying only means not being there to see it. 

Death had never scared her. 

Why would it? 

People fear death for not wishing to loose whatever they might have accumulated in life. A family, wealth, friends. Zulema never had anything to loose, so death was merely something she knew it would embrace her, eventually. She had always lived without fear, dying should be no different. Wether it would happen sooner, or later — the previous more likely than the later — wasn’t something that kept her awake at night. 

Death is easier than most people think. With the amount of attempts at her life that she had through the years, Zulema had taken enough glimpses at the other side to know it was as simple as falling asleep. 

No, dying wasn’t what made death unbearable. 

It was those who were left behind. 

Memory is a powerful thing. Even after death hammers the last nail on the coffin, it was still capable of keeping those who had been long gone alive, as ghosts, lingering deep inside your head — glimmering shadows, old images that never leave. A trace of a smile, a whisper of a touch. And pain, ever present, holding you possessively, following you wherever you go.

Its was the _hauntings_ that made death suffocating — not for those who were facing it directly, but for those who were not. 

At this moment, Zulema had never been more aware of that. 

Letting out a sigh, the brunette starts moving her feet, carelessly stepping over the small puddles that were scattered around the floor as she makes her way through the thin clay-colored sidewalk — green eyes searching each and every marking embedded in the pale grey stone for a name in particular. 

It doesn’t take long. 

Merely a few steps later, the brunette stops. Not in the conscious meaning of the word, but in the inevitable one. As if an external force had pressed hard against her chest and made her freeze solid in place, her eyes following an invisible path upwards, intuitively finding the name that had been haunting her dreams for the past couple of months. 

_Fátima Zahir._

She read, written in metallic font on the crypt in front of her.

After leaving the clearing with Macarena’s words banging inside her head, the brunette had taken that car and had only stopped when she had reached that cemetery’s perimeters, the location she knew that Cruz del Norte had arranged to entomb her daughter and every other prisoner that had died inside their walls. 

Apparently, it had the best cost-benefit.

Zulema didn’t want to step a foot inside this place, knowing deep down what it would mean. She could feel it even now, the memories, slamming against the mental door she had sealed shut the instant she had seen that wooden stake sink within Sandoval’s stomach, back at the prison riot. 

Sometimes, despite her efforts, the memories managed to leak through the gaps, slithering from underneath the door and reentering her mind in the form of dreams — nightmares — wickedly reminding her of their existence. Silently telling her they had become part of her.

And they wouldn’t leave. 

“My fellows, I would like to start a prayer, if you all joined me.” She hears, coming from somewhere to her right. 

Finally breaking her gaze from the lettering, Zulema turns her head to the side to see that she wasn’t alone anymore. 

There was a small family gathered in front of a crypt a few meters away, quietly weeping as they stared at the taller figure standing out from the group. A priest, she notices, on his feet beside the wall. He was calmly caressing the shoulder of who seemed to be the mother of the deceased — if her loud cries were anything to go by — as he opened a Bible with his free hand, intending on proceeding with the prayer he had suggested. 

“Please, join me.” The Father says, nodding softly to the weeping parent in front of him. “As a proper goodbye.” 

Zulema feels a bitter smile forming on her face. 

It never failed to amaze her how much fate enjoyed to completely fuck her over. 

Letting out an ironic breathy laugh, the brunette turns her gaze back forward, bitting the corner of her lip in an effort of forcing herself to ignore the man — along with the old memories that were stirring at the back of her mind, pressing against her mental block, forcing its hinges. 

Begging to be relived. 

“May you walk in sunshine, and God’s around you flow.” The priest begins, with a soothing voice. The family slowly starts following his lead, forming a low chorus. “For the happiness you gave us, no one will ever know.”

The wind was being especially nefarious that morning, carrying the words across the distance between her and the family with relative ease, reaching her ears in a cruel velocity, viciously entering — feeding, with each phrase, the memories she was trying real hard to keep at bay.

Zulema starts burning holes on the wall in front of her — avoiding the sudden tightness she started to feel rising up her chest. Hands firmly wrapped into fists deep inside her pockets.

“It broke our hearts to lose you, but you did not go alone. A part of us went with you the day God called you home.”

In a heartbeat, she sees a flash of brunette hair, contrasting against an yellow uniform, swaying in the wind — a leak.

“A million times we needed you. A million times we cried.” 

A flash of a smile, such joy reflected in eyes so similar to her own, watching her one last time before slowly walking away — another.

“If only love could have saved you, you would have never died.” 

And then, something inside Zulema screeches. 

An acute sound, starting deep within her heart, reverberating through her ribs and up her throat. She barely holds it back, feeling the scream slam itself against the back of her tightly closed teeth with a ferocious intensity. 

Unclenching her fists, the brunette roams inside her pockets until she feels the cold metal touch her fingertips, forming a furious grip around the jagged edge of the knife she had left in there earlier that morning — tightly enough to make her hiss in pain. 

It keeps Zulema focussed long enough for her to see from the corner of her eye the priest finally finish his prayers — nodding and waving to the family as they slowly dispersed, thankfully withdrawing themselves through an exit that didn’t intercepted with hers. 

The deceased’s mother is the last one to leave, being taken by the priest with an arm around her shoulders — her hands clasping the man’s clothes as he guided her out the cemetery. 

Zulema stays extremely still as she listens to the woman’s haunting wails get farther and farther away, waiting until the sound completely dies down before removing her hand from her pocket and curling it in front of her face — hot tears, finally, rolling down her cheeks. 

One of the many things she had learned after years of facing the most terrible facets life had to offer, was to know when a battle was lost. Have the knowledge to know when to raise a white flag was just as important as knowing when to cry for victory. 

A lost battle wasn’t necessarily a lost war. 

Understanding the moment to retreat was a significant tool, it spared yourself from any unnecessary energy waste, permitting you to focus your remaining strength on the next battle, on the next possible win. 

But not this time.

This time, Zulema felt that she had lost both. The battle and the war. There was no trace left to lift in the wind, to sway softly against the breeze, as a call out for mercy. In her chest, there was a hollow cave — heart painfully crumbling down, piece by piece, slowly giving in until only ash, dust and sorrow remained. 

The memories were flooding inside her mind, slipping right through the gaps of her fingers — unraveling to form a thick thread around her throat, slowly squeezing until her breathing stops, lungs burning. 

All through her life, Fátima had been something she had tried to forget with every strength she possessed. To cut the bond that connected the both of them had been an arduous and daily task — one that is done lethargically, with your teeth. She had chewed down on that binding rope until her gums had bled, desperately trying to pull herself away from her daughter and from the feelings that were stirring inside her heart. 

But, it was all in vain. 

The bond remained untouched. Zulema could feel it even now, dangling through the space between her and that silent crypt — tying them together like an umbilical cord the both of them had failed to cut. 

Even after death.

Allowing herself to love Fátima had been an betrayal. 

Nature, under the inexperienced eye, was seen as something vile in essence. In it, the strong feast on the weak — knowing no pity, or mercy — with an instinct that guided each action with only one goal: survival. 

Her own nature ran in a similar way, with weakness being seen as something meant to be eaten. Devoured. Cut, with fangs and nails, until there was not a single bone left uncleaned and not a single feeling — such as love — flourishing. 

But, inevitably, it did. 

Flourish. 

Despite every part of herself urging her otherwise, inside that decaying soil, love had sprung out — disseminating like weed, possessing every inch of her heart. 

Zulema loved Fátima with a love she had never felt before. It had started changing her from the moment she realized there was another heartbeat pulsating along side hers. Repainting her, from the inside out. A new color for every second she carried her daughter inside her venter — feeling her growing, bigger with each day. 

When her eyes had met Fátima for the first time, she had never felt such raw joy course through her veins before. 

And such sorrow.

Having her daughter being taken away from her the first time had felt as if a hand had pierced inside her chest, wrapped around her heart, and ripped it out. Breaking each and every rib with its force. 

Agony had burst out of her lips in the form of singing — an unheard lullaby, resonating in the quiet room. A plead, for the daughter she had no chance of caressing, no chance of pressing against her bosom.

No chance of loving.

_And now, here she was again._

The brunette thinks, taking in a shaky breath as she drops her hand from her face — gaze, once again, returning to the crypt in front of her.

_With her and her daughter, drift apart, one last time._

Zulema would love to stop time and rewind it a bit. To go back to a moment that she could have stopped all this from happening. To a moment that she could feel her hija inside her arms once more, have her clutch her shirt with an iron grip, petite teary brown eyes blinking up at her, begging her to stay.

She should have listened, that day she had visited Fátima. Listened to the voice that had come from deep inside, from the bottom of her heart — imploring, with a burning urge: 

_Don’t leave._

She should have held her daughter until the sun had rose, its morning rays shinning through the bedroom with a warm glow. Held her until she saw petite eyes blink open again, a large smile forming on small lips, pure happiness flickering inside those beautiful brown shades.

Zulema would give anything to see them blink open, now. 

But, the universe doesn’t negotiates. 

And time never moves backwards. It simply passed by — consuming — uncaringly taking everything it wanted, letting you deal with whatever _mierda_ it throws at you by yourself. 

In the end, regret had no use. 

Neither had guilt. 

They were the most useless feelings, giving you exactly nothing in exchange. 

Anger, on the other side, had always been the best of motivators. 

It had helped her before, back in prison. Keeping her sane after seeing her daughter’s head crash against Cruz del Norte’s courtyard cement floor. And later on, it had kept her focussed as she plotted her revenge against Sandoval. 

And now, anger will help her seal everything shut again.

The brunette grits her teeth as she feels the scorching fury take hold of her. The heat was spreading fast — accelerated by kerosine, being dripped down on top of the memories that were still lingering inside her mind, setting it all ablaze. Red-hot flames were consuming every inch of her sorrow, until the only thing left running through her veins was the sudden urge to viciously slam against that repugnant grey stone marked with her daughter’s name. 

So, that’s what she does. 

Letting out a grunt, Zulema steps forward to close a fist around a bouquet of flowers from a nearby crypt, brutally tearing the piece out of its vase to start bashing it against the grey stone — feeling, with each hit, the memories burn even faster.

The brunette slams the crypt until the plant starts crumbling around her fingers — the once beautiful bouquet, now merely a feeble assemble of naked thin stems, hanging loosely around her tight grip. 

“Fucking flowers.” Zulema snarls, angrily throwing the pitiful bouquet on the floor.

Glaring at the quiet crypt in front of her one more time, the brunette takes a hissing breath before turning on her ankles and stomp out of that cemetery. 

Intending on never returning again.

— - —

Folding her hands tighter around her mug, Macarena lets out a sigh as she watches the clouds softly glide through the pale sky out the window. The blueness of earlier that morning was slowly turning into blinding white — strong winter winds pushing the large mass of water particles across the heavens, forming a denser mist, threatening the world bellow it with an heavy rain. 

She had been sitting in that spot behind their dinning table since before the very first grey cloud had appeared in the sky, mind running with her previous interaction with Zulema. 

During the first few hours after the brunette had slammed their front door and left the clearing without looking back, Macarena had tried — and failed — to distract herself with the arrangements of their first heist together. 

She had swallowed down her worry for the woman and promptly ignored the whole conversation they had shared by spreading open a map sheet over their dinning table, circling with a bright red marker all the cities that were close to the trailer’s location. 

The city Zulema had mentioned was nearer than she had expected, Macarena had thought, tracing the distance with her finger. Judging by the map’s scale, it was probably one to two hours away, by car. It truly seemed big enough to be worth their time. After all, a bingo was not a top building priority for smaller towns, all the profited money was usually redistributed for the locations of higher necessity, such as hospitals and police stations. Which was not the case with bigger towns. The larger the city, the higher the cost of maintaining it. Surely, entertainment — such as a bingo — was worth spending a little money on, since it could generate even more profit for the town. 

If that city indeed had a bingo, it would be the perfect place to start. 

Recapping the marker, Macarena places it beside the table as she lets her gaze roam through the rest of the map — light eyes intuitively following the familiar road that led straight into the neighborhood she was born. The scale was too small for her to actually make out any particular detail, but she feels her heart squeeze nevertheless as she watches how far from home she actually was. 

It’s funny how quickly her life had changed. 

At the beginning, she barely knew what she wanted from life. Allowed anyone to tell her what to do, how to act, and who she should be. Well, look at her now. Hidden inside a camping trailer, in the middle of nowhere, planning heists to perform alongside a woman she had never thought she would share a roof with, let alone a bed. 

The blonde had changed skins so many times she wonders if there was any trace left of that old Macarena, the one that had mistakenly fallen in love for an older man and had been foolish enough to be lured inside a trap that had stolen years of her life locked away inside a prison cell. 

Trancing her finger up the map, the blonde rests her digit above the place she knew Cruz del Norte was located. 

Throughout the first few months inside it, Macarena had thought that following the system was the best way to go. Speak in court, obey the rules, trust the directors and judges to do the right thing. But, prison had its ways of forcing you to see from a different perspective. When she reached the four year mark, she had finally understood why Zulema had been so driven to achieve her freedom. 

Truly, there was nothing else that mattered. 

The day she had stepped outside those walls and felt the ocean breeze grace her cheeks for the first time in years, Macarena had felt a joy that was impossible to describe. In that moment, she knew that returning was not an option. 

And she would use every tool available to make absolute sure of that. 

Macarena had tried, for many months, to erase the brunette’s mark from her life. Convincing herself that removing Zulema from prison had only been an necessary evil, a bittersweet leverage, merely something she would have to forcibly swallow down her throat during a few years before parting paths once again.

But, the truth always finds a way back to you. 

Love was a complicated feeling. And perverse. It often had the pleasure of binding the most impossible pieces together, reshaping corners and edges until they fitted. Forming a single homogeneous composition, impossible to distinguish where one started and the other began. 

Both pieces, now, forever changed. Forever bound.

Every now and then, the dream she had inside the cabin resurges inside her mind. Truth finding its way back to her with the image of Zulema tenderly caressing her cheek, kissing both her and her child — becoming, unconditionally, part of her life. 

Part of her family. 

Letting out a sigh, Macarena starts folding the map once again, realizing there was no way she was going to focus on their heist now. 

Opening a cabinet, the blonde places the folded map inside it before wrapping her fingers around the little porcelain container that she used to store her teabags, deciding to brew some chamomile to try and sharpen her focus back to the matter at hand.

After boiling some water and pouring the correct amount of it on a mug, Macarena dips a teabag into the burning liquid, turning their small TV on with a flick of her finger before taking a seat upon their dinning table — folding her hands around the ceramic to trap the heat inside her hold and warm up the skin of her palms.

That’s a position Macarena stays until the tea has been completely drank, the clouds had shifted, and the rain started to pour outside the window — large bodies of water falling down from the heavens, changing the atmosphere as a whole.

With the television’s white noise ringing softly through the background, the blonde watched the petite droplets of rain run down the window’s glass with her mind, ever the opportunist, tirelessly returning to that particular pair of green eyes, glaring at her with such sadness shining from underneath those angry shades. 

She knew Zulema. She did. Better than any wife could. 

Macarena knew her enough to know better than to push the woman, especially with something as delicate as the death of her daughter. But, before she could do anything about it, the words were blurting out of her mouth. 

Despite reading the signs, the blonde had not been prepared to see how straight on her hunch had been — poking the brunette right in the wound, unknowingly twisting a knife that had been lodged on Zulema’s side the moment they had stepped inside that clearing. 

The blonde may not know exactly _why_ Fátima was suddenly back at the brunette’s mind, but she understood how difficult it was to let some strains from your past go — remembered how tightly they wrap around your neck, forcing you to feel them pressed against your skin with each deep breath.

Both of them had lost many things along the course of life — some caused by fate, others by each other. Macarena had seen enough tragedy to recognize that look Zulema had given her before leaving the trailer. 

Pain was understandable in every language that existed, even in those that couldn’t be heard. 

_“—rena Ferreiro.”_

Her ear catches, half sentence, breaking the blonde off her reverie. 

Snapping her attention back up, Macarena turns sideways in her seat to find the television showing the afternoon news. Turning the volume up, she starts paying attention to what the well dressed woman in the screen will say.

_“—found no clue that connected these two together. Police interrogated Román Ferreiro, brother to Macarena Ferreiro, that instated in his testimony that he hasn’t heard from his sister in months, declaring completely unaware of her location.”_

Despite of knowing that already, the blonde lets out a relieved sigh.

_“Both Macarena Ferreiro and escape fugitive, Zulema Zahir, are still being searched by the police. As always, if you have any information to share, please, contact the following number below. And coming up next, the results of the most recent voting—”_

Tuning the television out, Macarena feels her mind thrift towards her brother. 

It’s been a long while since the last time they talked. After their father died, and the whole fiasco with Karin, she had requested Román to step away from her, not wishing to involve him any longer in the darkness that had started to take hold of her entire life. 

She couldn’t bare to bury another Ferreiro underneath the ground. 

Macarena feels her heart squeeze briefly, wondering what he might be doing right now. 

Biting the corner of her lip, the blonde turns her gaze to the pre-paid phone that was laying on top of the countertop beside the front door. 

Maybe she should call him.

Swiftly rising on her feet, she shortens the distance in two strides, taking the phone into her hand to type the cell number she knew by heart. Before pressing “call”, however, she feels her fingers freeze — thumb hovering above the small button, hesitating. 

What would she say?

_Hello, brother._

_How are you?_

_Where am I? Well, remember that woman that had made our life hell a few months ago? I’m in love with her and sharing a camping trailer. Yeah, long story. Ah, and you’re going to be an uncle, by the way._

Letting out a sigh, Macarena places the phone back on the countertop. 

Bringing her brother back into this would be too much for him. It would stir too many sleeping demons. 

The blonde had already made peace with her own — a consequence of spending months sharing a bed with the devil herself and because she had to. Her child will need her whole, she couldn’t allow herself to drown in her demons when there was a life growing inside her venter.

Despite wishing to envolve Román in her baby’s life, she had made her choice. 

Feeling a heavy weight set over her shoulders, Macarena retrieves Madrid’s map once again, stretching it out upon the table once more to try and bring her focus back on their newest heist — every now and then blocking out the sly thoughts that were slithering inside her head with the doubts of where exactly, in that large map, Zulema might be. 

— - — 

Pink and green lights were frenetically flashing through the room, periodically illuminating the bodies that were chaotically jumping on the dance floor — crowd completely entranced by the electronic music that was ricocheting against the walls, loud enough to make the whole place vibrate with its rhythm. 

The whole chaos was being completely ignored by the lone figure that was sitting on the bar by herself — green eyes lazily watching the golden liquid twirl around the ice cubes inside her glass, lost in thought. 

_Puta rubia._

Zulema mentally curses as she takes a large sip of her drink, completely filling her mouth with the strong alcohol before swallowing, letting out a sigh at the pleasant burning sensation rolling down her throat — bitter taste of the previous hours she had experienced blending in just nicely with the whiskey’s rich smoky flavor lingering at the back of her tongue. 

Resting her glass on top of the bar counter, the brunette slightly turns her head to the side to scan the room around her, roaming the place she had chosen to numb herself on with a sly squint in her eyes. The crowd might be distracted with something else, but Zulema wasn’t a person that simply allowed herself to be caught off guard that easily, no matter the circumstances. 

Her and rubia were still being searched by the police, after all. Any slip might bring the whole plan down. And despite the slight anger that she was feeling for the blonde at the moment, ruining their partnership wasn’t the best way to deal with her frustrations.

That’s what the alcohol was for. 

The ride from the cemetery had taken long enough for the sun to finally set over the horizon, chilly darkness taking its place as the brunette drove down the federal highway towards the city she had seen alongside Rafid earlier that morning. 

That particular club was the only one she had found open at this hour — its neon ‘abierto’ sign shining brightly through the cold night, turning the whole sidewalk red as the brunette parked that junk-on-wheels beside the road. 

On an ordinary day, the vibrations that she was feeling reverberate through the club’s walls would be something that would make her ecstatic — have the adrenaline tingle at the back of her palms with the anticipation of a really interesting evening. But now, it was merely a place that she was using to take her mind off things. Escape her demons. 

And besides, Zulema wasn’t feeling like returning to the trailer just yet.

The moment the brunette had stepped over the club’s threshold she knew that she had chosen the right place to go. Even though the infrastructure wasn’t one of the best, the music pumping in the room was loud enough to distract her from the remaining sly little thoughts that were still trying to resurface from the depths of her mind. 

She could still feel them — the burnt debris. Memories converted into dry ashes, floating at the borders of her mind, patiently waiting to rekindle the second they had the chance. 

Zulema refused to return to the trailer and face the blonde’s curious eyes like this. The soot was too dense, still. 

Too _visible_. 

After many years of facing each other as enemies, Macarena had learnt to understand her in a way nobody else could. Almost developing a tuning to what the brunette might be thinking, or feeling. 

Survival does funny things to one’s persons mind. 

Apparently, spend half a prison time being on the opposite end of Zulema's affection spectrum had made the blonde learn by force how to read her and how to predict her. The same way a mouse starts understanding how a human behaves, so, at the dead of night, while the humans are asleep, it can leave its hiding place and feast on the petite crumbs the giant bipeds had left during the day.

Macarena had called her an excellent teacher, once. 

Actually thanked the brunette for tutoring her on how to survive inside that dreadful place. It was funny to see how the blonde had been naive to the point of believing those kind of skills came from the outside towards the inside, and not the other way around. As if Zulema had been responsible for her whole change. 

No, that particular blossoming was not something that could be taught. It was a matter of genes. 

_Nature._

And she understood nature. 

Zulema had seen that particular set of colors hidden inside the blonde way before the thought of stepping over their intimacy line had crossed her mind. Even during their early prison days, when the younger woman would shiver and shake in her presence, the brunette could still see them — in slumber, laying quietly underneath her skin. 

Prison had always managed to expose the worst in people, and it did its part exceptionally well with Macarena. Inside it, they had circled one another for the longest of periods, each one trying to take a peek at the other, measuring up, trying to make out what they were seeing. Zulema had tried to understand the blonde until it had became the same thing as trying to understand herself. 

And vice versa. 

It seemed natural to think they had started to develop a tuning to each other. 

Despite knowing this, it had infuriated her how Macarena had managed to hit the nail right in the fucking head, earlier that day. 

Feelings always made most things get worse. More intense. 

The affection she started to feel for the blonde had made impossible for her to ignore whenever the woman had something running through her mind. Turned her expressions into an open book — one she could read at any given moment, trace the words with her fingers, instantly recognizing any change written down in the pale soft skin. 

And, apparently, it worked the same way for Macarena, too. 

Rubia was getting better at reading her with each day. That morning, the woman had connect a particular set of dots Zulema had not predicted that she would. Binding information smaller than breadcrumbs, following the path towards what was lingering inside the brunette’s mind with an annoyingly accurate assumption. 

Most of her had been furious — blinding anger coursing through her veins, forcing her to squeeze the blonde’s neck with its intensity. Her emotions had always been something that had been her own problem, exclusively. Not something for Macarena to poke her pretty little nose into. 

But.

A small part — a very small part — of herself had felt _warm_. 

Zulema had forgotten how good it felt to have someone worry about you.

She had missed it. 

“Your face looks familiar.” The brunette hears, coming from somewhere to her right — loud enough to resonate over the music and successfully break her from her reverie.

Lowering her glass down, the brunette turns her face to the side to find a man, barely in his mid-forties, sitting on the stool beside hers. 

Closer than she’d like.

Lifting a brow, she glances the interruption up and down. He was looking entirely bland with his white button-down, tucked inside his dark jeans. Zulema could conjure him perfectly inside a late 40’s american comercial — pale skin and hair, waving emptily at the screen with a large smile, proclaiming that that brand in particular had the missing piece for your family to be happy.

He seemed completely displaced inside that club. And, apparently, desperate enough to try and conjure up a conversation with _her_ , of all people. 

“Sí. I’m a wanted woman. That must be it.” She replies, giving him an ironic smile. 

Most of the time, when confronted with a delicate question, the best way to throw people off almost always ended up being telling the truth. The truth was always harder to believe in, hiding in plain sight. The one people always closed their eyes to. 

The man snorts, proving her right. 

“Really?” He asks, bending his body a bit forward, one elbow lifting to rest on top of the bar counter, not so subtly getting closer to her. 

“I’m more famous than the Twilight Killers.” She answers, monotone, taking a prolonged sip of her whiskey. 

He laughs, giving her a large smirk. 

_What an imbecile._

“I only said that because I recognized that face.” He continues, ignoring the blank stare the brunette was giving him. “I’ve seen it before. You must be thinking about something annoying your husband did.” 

Cheap move, Zulema thinks. A visible and weak maneuver to fish for information. Easily disrupted. 

_Pero._

_Vale._

_She’ll play._

She had come all the way to this club looking for something to distract her, after all. 

Smirking, the brunette takes another sip of her drink, finishing it all with one large gulp before turning on her seat to face the man completely — mirroring his position with an elbow rested upon the bar counter, as well. 

“Not a husband.” She replies, going along with his game. 

The man smirks, pleased that the mysterious woman in front of him was actually giving him a chance. 

Maybe, it was his lucky day.

“Hm, boyfriend?” He tries, internally hoping for a denial. 

“Still cold.” Zulema rebuffs, one brow lifting, wondering what might be his next guess.

The man frowns for a second, gears turning inside his head. If she was single, she would have said so, by now.

Maybe, she plays for the other team? 

The woman didn’t really look like a lesbian, despite her black clothes and rock band hoodie. But, either way, he wasn’t afraid of a confirmation. He knew that with just a little persuasion, he could get his way.

It had always worked.

“Girlfriend?” He guesses.

Pursing her lips, Zulema feels herself grow amused for the first time in hours. 

“Something like that.” She answers, a small smirk on her face. 

It was hardly close from the truth. Zulema couldn’t exactly describe what she and the blonde had between the two of them, but surely it wasn’t something as simple that the word “girlfriend” could fit properly. No, rubia meant something much more profound to her than just that.

But, that wasn’t something he needed to know.

“Ah.” He utters, smiling a toothy grin at her. Certainly, one he thinks to be extremely charming. “Then we understand each other.” He smirks, flashing her the golden band that was wrapped around his ring finger.

“We do?” She asks, only briefly glancing at the cheap piece of metal before finding his gaze with a brow lifted, genuinely curious to how exactly he had come to that conclusion. 

“Yes. A pretty woman like you certainly is searching for some distraction.” He flirts, his voice dropping down a tone or two to imply the second intentions lying underneath his words. “Just like myself.”

Zulema hums at him, twirling the empty cup inside her hand, measuring its weight. His assumption was only partially right. Correct goal, but not the intentions behind it.

“And you are the distraction?” She asks, throwing her head back to watch him with an squint. 

“I can be.” He confirms, thinking he’s winning something. 

Noticing she had finished her drink, he calls the bartender over with a wave of his hand, forming the number two with his fingers once the young woman gets close enough to signalize her he desired more of what Zulema had been drinking before he had arrived. 

The bartender only takes a moment to place a pair of identical glasses in front of them, pouring equal amounts of golden liquid in both of them — finishing the drink with a couple of refined ice cubes gently floating on the surface, before retrieving once more to whatever she was doing previously. 

With a smile, the man pushes one glass closer to her, offering it.

Zulema glances at the cup for a second, lips pursing.

On an ordinary day, she wouldn’t think twice about refusing to have her own drink being paid by someone as pitiful as that guy. But, today was no ordinary day. So, instead of declining, Zulema contradicts herself and wraps her hand around the cup, accepting the free drink.

“It must be my lucky day.” She mocks, lifting the glass to give him a slight toast in appreciation before throwing the cup back to take a large sip.

The whiskey was just as potent as the last one, trailing a burning path down her throat — strong enough to start forming a warm buzz around her chest, pleasant feeling traveling up her neck. 

Numbness, finally, settling in.

Letting out a sigh, the brunette places the glass on the counter before turning her gaze back to the smiling man in front of her — green eyes squeezing into a slit. 

“And what brings you here, Mister Distraction?” She asks, not really needing an answer. It was pretty clear to her what exactly he was searching for inside that club.

“I’m Leonard.” He laughs, introducing himself, stretching out a hand for her to grasp.

“Julie.” Zulema lies, giving him a thin smile as she briefly grips his clammy fingers. 

“Nice to meet you, Julie.” Leonard says, letting her hand go to grab his own glass, repeating the brunette’s toast movement before giving his drink a taste. 

“Long story short — He continues, his face crouching up with the whiskey’s strong flavor — my wife just had a baby.”

“And you know how that goes.” He compliments, waving a hand in front of him in a dismissive gesture. “No peace at all.” 

Zulema raises an eyebrow at the response. 

How ironic. 

“Do tell.” She pushes, nursing her glass of whiskey — not wishing to prolongue her slight tipsiness any longer than necessary. Her amusement with his company was dropping lower by the second. 

Leonard lets out a sigh, visually tired, his shoulders dropping down in defeat. “Everything is about the baby now. She barely has time for me, _her husband_.” 

He exclaims, voice getting thiner as he pronounces the tittle, as if it carried an _immense_ amount of significance.

“So, yeah, I need a distraction from all that.” He finishes, shaking his head, giving her a look that insinuated that she would totally understand the absurd of his situation.

Zulema feels the sudden urge to spit on him. 

“And your child? Not enough of a distraction?” The brunette asks, her lips pursing to prevent herself from acting on her frustrated desire.

“Not at all. The only thing he can do now is eat, poop, and cry.” He dismisses, sipping his drink.

Zulema curls her fingers tighter around her glass — mind bitterly flashing with the images of her own child, stored inside a granite wall like a depot.

“I thought children were meant to be blessings.” She forces, feeling the annoyance bubbling up within her stomach — hot enough to evaporate any lasting alcohol running through her veins. 

“Maybe, but I needed my wife. And she wasn't there. So, I’m here with you.” He finishes with a smirk, trying to get the situation back to his area of interest — completely oblivious to her rising irritation. 

Throwing her head back, Zulema turns a nasty glare to the man in front of her, sucking the front of her teeth as she watches his lips part into a even bigger smile.

Men were always so disgusting. 

Letting out a snort, she bends her body forward, pulling her face closer to his, mouth shifting into a sly smirk. 

“You’re telling me that your idea of distraction is to leave your wife, who had recently gave birth, alone with your newborn child, so then, you could come here, waste your time flirting with me on a club you clearly don’t belong into.” She mocks, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“What a shitty father you are.” Zulema finishes, straightening herself back up to finish her drink in one go, knowing that conversation had reached its end. 

Leonard turns a dumfounded look at her — already pale skin getting paler by the second. He had not expected such abrupt reaction from the woman. 

“Because a dirty lesbian like you certainly knows _everything_ about parenting?” He snarls, instantly irritated at her rejection. 

She smiles at him — just a barring of teeth, completely humorless. 

“No. _Nada._ ” She replies, shrugging briefly. “But even nothing seems to be more than you.”

“Fucking bitch.” He curses, brutally pushing his stool back to rise on his feet. 

Zulema doesn’t even bat a single eyelash at him, watching him turn on his back and step deeper inside the club with a calculated indifference expressed upon her face. 

Letting out a sigh, the brunette faces forward on her seat once again, lifting a hand to wave the bartender over, requesting another refil of her drink.

“A little bit more, please.” She asks the young woman before she closes the whiskey bottle. “Just a little bit more.” 

The bartender nods at her, adding a small amount of the whiskey before leaving the older woman alone again. 

Resting her elbows upon the dark surface, Zulema twirls the glass on her hand, watching the golden liquid swirl before filling her mouth with a large sip. Her plans of distracting herself with that man had completely backfired, making her feel actually more irritated than before. 

At least, anger is better than sorrow. 

Lowering her cup back down, the brunette turns her head to the side when she catches movement from the corner of her eye — gaze falling upon that man once more, finding him thrown over the club’s couch with a heavy arm draped around the shoulders of a visually wasted young girl. 

The girl was barely sitting straight, trunk dangling to the sides without any support. Leonard had a wolf smile on his face, clearly happy he had found an easier distraction than she had been.

Pursing her lips, Zulema turns back forward, weighting her choices — one finger tapping the glass as she continues to follow Leonard’s movements through her peripheral vision.

He seemed to be with no intentions of stopping. In fact, he was rising to his feet with the girl underneath his arm, promptly dragging her outside the club. 

Feeling the choice being made for her, Zulema finishes her drink with a single gulp, taking the empty glass into her hand before also rising to her feet — following the tumbling pair out the door and into the dark night. 

The air was colder than when she had arrived a few hours ago. Winter rain, she assumes, as she steps over the small puddles of water dispersed randomly around the parking lot’s concrete floor. 

There wasn’t enough cars outside to be crowed, so, with just a glance, her gaze easily found Leonard walking away with the drunk girl wrapped around his side, heading towards a black family van that was parked at the far end of the parking lot. 

Briefly glancing at her surroundings, Zulema folds her hood over her head, not wishing to be recognized by the few cameras she had spotted installed at the club’s exterior walls. Rolling her shoulders to lightly stretch them, she starts to carefully approach the departing pair. 

In a handful of strides, she catches up to them, getting close enough to start making out what the poor inebriated girl was saying. The girl seemed to be at least half aware of what was happening around her, questioning Leonard who he was and where he was taking her to. 

Zulema grips the empty glass cup tighter as she listens to the man’s hollow responses, distracting her with his calm voice as he drags her even closer to his vehicle. 

Noticing it was now or never, the brunette stops.

“Oy, flirty boy.” She calls out. 

Leonard barely has time to fully turn back before Zulema brutally smashes the glass cup right against his head — violently breaking it into a million pieces. The man lets out a painful cry, dropping the young girl’s shoulders to fold both hands in front on his bleeding face. 

“Ey, tú.” Zulema shouts the young girl, who turns a confused frown at her. “Fuera.” She says, with a tilt of her head. 

The girl doesn’t even need a second request, giving the strange woman a scared look before turning on her heels, running back towards the club with a slight tumble in her pace — the adrenaline of the moment making her sober enough to reach the exterior doors in no time. 

Zulema waits until the girl fully vanishes inside before turning her gaze back to the bent over man in front of her. 

“You should revalue your company choices for the evening.” She starts, stuffing her hands inside her pockets — slender fingers curling around the knife’s handle, just in case. “I told you I was worse than the Twilight Killers.” 

“You crazy bitch!” Leonard snarls, dropping his hands to face the brunette with a burning glare. The glass had made a nasty cut above his right eyebrow, bright red blood running down his cheek in a continuous stream. 

Head injuries always bled worse than the rest. 

“Should have stayed at home with your baby.” Zulema shrugs, lips curling into a thin ironic smile. “Might have had more fun.” 

The man angrily wipes the blood from his mouth before letting out a snarl, pulling his arm back to swing a nasty punch at her. She manages to dodge it just in time, feeling the swift move cut the air beside her ear with a hiss. 

Not even a second later, Leonard uses his momentum to throw another, hitting the mark this time. His fist meets Zulema’s cheek in record speed, too fast for her to do anything other than tense up her jaw muscles, hoping to protect her teeth against the strong blow. 

Instantly, pain explodes in her face, hurt radiating through the side of her head and down her nose, powerful enough to make stars suddenly shine in her vision, white spots briefly blinding her as she takes a few steps back — balance momentarily shaken up. 

Zulema blinks once, twice, demanding her sight to become clear again. 

Leonard doesn’t wait for her, using the situation in his favor to swing another one, fist meeting her abdomen this time. She feels the whiskey rise up her throat back again, his knuckles hitting her straight in her stomach — the impact forcing the organ to twitch and almost force the liquid out. 

Letting out a growl, the brunette faces him once again, ignoring the pain to concentrate all her strength in a powerful kick, her boot’s black sole violently slamming against the base of his groin. It does its job exceptionally well, forcing him fall to his knees with the pain, both hands curling in front of his private parts as he wept. 

Taking in a hissing breath, Zulema promptly ignores the hot blood dripping down her nose as she takes a step behind Leonard, one hand stretching out to curl over his chin, brutally pulling his head back against her chest, holding it still while she finally takes out the knife from her pocket, pressing the cold metal on his neck. 

“Ay, cuidado, papasito.” She mocks, sensing him tensing up. “Wouldn’t want to disrupt your precious charm.” 

Leonard freezes instantly, facade dropping down.

“Alright. Alright. Please.” He pleads, lifting his hands up in surrender. “Don’t do this.”

Zulema purses her lips, gripping the handle tighter. 

She knows what he was about to do with that girl. The brunette had been in that girl’s place many times before. It was simply something impossible to forget, and impossible to forgive. 

With one swift movement, it would be one less scum in the world. 

But. 

Something was holding her back. 

On their previous conversation, Leonard had mentioned a child. 

These kind of things never stopped her before. Some children were better off to live without their shitty parents. Zulema herself would know that, having escaped her birth home when she was merely a young girl. But, after the day that she had, and after visiting the place that she had, hesitation was shining bright inside her mind, refilling her thoughts with images of what kind of life that infant would have if they grew up without a father. 

_Will they have the same fate her daughter had growing up without her?_

Was the phrase that kept lingering the most inside her head. An painful echo, ricocheting the walls. Gut-wrenching fragments of something that she had promised herself to bury earlier that day. They were twisting her arm — urging her, by force, to loosen her grip around the knife’s pressed against Leonard’s throat.

Letting out a frustrated grunt, Zulema fully pulls the utensil back, cursing underneath her breath. 

“Sal de aquí.” She hisses, angrily pushing the man’s head forward and away from her — harshly enough to make him fall over his hands. 

“Ahora!” The brunette exclaims, breaking Leonard’s prettified stare. 

With a frightened welp, he stands, tripping over his feet as he swiftly makes his way through the parking lot and towards his parked car — tires screeching as he abruptly turns the vehicle over and leaves the club without looking back.

Zulema waits until the van’s backlights fully turns around the corner before letting out a irritated sigh, furious with herself. Pocketing the knife, she lifts a hand to wipe off the blood dripping down her nose, her palm coming off bright red.

Her lips curl into an ironic smirk, mentally laughing at the absurd her evening had turned into. 

Leonard ended up distracting her, after all. 

Sighing once again, she cleans the blood on the fabric of her jeans before sinking her hand in her back pocket to retrieve her almost empty cigarette packet, placing one upon her lips to light it and take a drag — smoke entering her lungs in a calming caress.

Turning her head to the side to exhale, she catches sight of a bright neon sign, shinning right on the other side of the road. Its light reflecting over the water puddles on the parking lot’s floor, transforming almost the whole cement into fluorescent blue.

_Delta Bingo — A Night of Fun!_

It read, in blinding cursive.

Letting out a ironic snort, Zulema slowly finishes her cigarette as she glances at the place with an analytical look, making mental notes of the location. Once satisfied enough, she throws the bud on the floor, putting out the fire with a twist of her heel before turning on her ankles, heading towards her parked car to, at last, return to the camping trailer. 

— - —

With a frightened gasp, Macarena barely manages to catch the slipping plate that had practically jumped out of her hands with the sudden roar of an old engine that had cut through the room. 

Closing a tight grip around the object, the blonde turns her head to the side and towards the window to find the familiar looking car entering the clearing. A pair of headlights briefly flaring the calm surface of the lake before shutting off — silence, and darkness, returning once again.

The moon was glowing softly that night — slowly coming out of its New phase, and entering a Crescent one, shinning a light just bright enough to allow her to see a tall figure stepping out of the now parked car, loudly slamming its door before start heading towards the trailer.

Macarena didn’t need to fully see to know who it was. 

And, even if she did, that doubt wouldn’t linger in her mind for long. Merely a few seconds later, Zulema enters the trailer — familiar blankness reflecting inside green eyes as she closes the front door with much more finesse than she had with the car.

Placing the plate back on the sink, Macarena gently turns to face the brunette — mind slowly catching up to her eyes and sending cold waves of worry towards her stomach once she fully understands that those dark spots scattered around the woman’s cheeks were, in fact, blood. 

Zulema’s face was marked by a red trail that was running down her nose, contrasting against the pale skin with a crimson line that went from her left nostril to her mouth — a dry bloody path that ended just where an angry slit was cutting her upper lip’s corner in almost two, forming another bloody trail that was curving around her chin and slithering down her neck, disappearing underneath the black hoodie’s collar.

In a heartbeat, a million questions start popping up inside her mind. Light eyesroaming each and every inch of Zulema’s face in record speed, assorting each mark and cut with a frown, counting them, checking how serious they were.

“Qué?” The brunette asks, harshly, growing a little impatient underneath Macarena’s uninterrupted stare.

Lifting a brow, the blonde meets the woman’s gaze with an incredulous expression taking over her features — worry shifting into annoyance faster than a combustion as she notices Zulema’s complete indifference over the current state that her face was in.

Instead of answering what exactly was bothering her, Macarena swallows down her concerns and funnels her frustrations on the easiest and shortest path to follow through when it came to the woman in front of her.

“Where the hell were you?” Macarena exclaims, palms facing up briefly before lowering down to rest upon her hips — eyes burning even more holes on the brunette’s already bruised face.

Not giving her much thought, Zulema merely shrugs again. “I don’t have to tell you, we’re not girlfriends.” 

Macarena snorts, lips parting into an ironic smile. “Zulema, I’m worse than that, I’m your _socia_. And you vanish for the whole day, and simply expects me to sit and twiddle my thumbs while I wait for you?” 

Letting out a sigh, Zulema lowers the hood from her head before stepping deeper inside the trailer — coming to rest a hip beside the countertop that was the farthest from the irritated blonde.

“Might be good for you. Plenty of time to get familiar with those pregnancy books they suggest you read. Lots of things to learn.” Zulema replies, one hand lifting to brush her face — feeling that day’s heaviness finally starting to weigh on her shoulders now that she had come back to the trailer. 

Letting out a matching sigh, Macarena brushes a hand through her hair, pushing blonde locks out of her face as she closes her eyes briefly, taking a deep breath to help her push down the scorching stress that was bubbling up her throat with the snarky coment. 

_She always had a talent in making me mad._

Opening her eyes once again, Macarena starts preparing herself to refute the statement when she feels herself pause, frustrations evaporating by the second as she catches sight of a new fresh stream of blood slowly dripping down Zulema’s chin — cut reopened by the brunette’s earlier gesture. 

Zulema watches the expressions change in Macarena’s face with an uncanny stillness settling over her body, eyes devouring every shift hungrily. 

Anger had always been easier. It was familiar. She had seen those features upon the blonde’s face so many times that, if she were to close her eyes, she could perfectly make out how deep her brow would frown, how intense her stare would get, and how reddish her cheeks would flush. 

Pushing Macarena’s buttons had been one of her most desired things to do. She used to love to grasp into every opportunity that she could find to annoy the woman even more and have that particular set of expressions being directed at her — partially because it pleased her to make the blonde’s life just a little more difficult than it had to be, and partially because they were truly astonishing to stare into.

Beauty could always be found in violence, and Macarena’s violence had always been one of the most beautiful things to gaze upon. 

Truly, her favorite. 

But, watching her now, that spot was being quickly replaced by the felling that she was seeing glimmering inside the blonde’s eyes. Piercing worry was burning within Macarena’s gaze, stirring emotions deep inside her heart, leaving her completely helpless as she watches the woman slowly close the distance between them. 

Honey eyes were following every step unblinking, mesmerized as Macarena got closer and closer — narrowing the space between their bodies until they were near enough that Zulema could feel the woman’s warm breath against the cold skin of her cheeks.

At this distance, she could perfectly make out the details inside the blonde’s eyes, distinguish every shade and every feeling being reflected at her — chest starting to grow warm underneath the tender stare. 

Lighting up. 

She truly had missed being on the other end of those eyes.

Macarena was watching the cut on her mouth with a light frown upon her forehead. Zulema feels a soft sigh caress her chin before she sees the blonde lift a hand — pale fingertips hovering over the bleeding gash for a second before delicately brush the bruised skin. 

“Who did this to you?” Macarena asks, with an almost whisper, doing terrible things to the brunette’s heart. 

Zulema doesn’t answer her — fluttering chest holding her back, forcing her to simply wait and see what the blonde might do next. 

The silence does not discourages her. Instead of retreating, Macarena lifts her hand higher, turning her palm up to lightly cup the brunette’s cheek — thumb gently caressing the skin. 

The brunette’s eyelids close against her will, face leaning deeper into the touch —body, intuitively, revealing the screaming truth that laid underneath. 

Macarena watched the whole scene with her breath caught halfway up her throat — mind running inside her skull. 

She knows Zulema. She knows how out of the curve this gesture was. 

Along the years they spent together, one of the very last things she came to understand about the brunette was the way she dealt with her sorrows. Zulema had always been one of the most closed off person she had ever met, intimacy revealed only to the select few, but that had never stopped her in trying to take a peak at what might be laying underneath that tough looking scorpion shell. 

During the prison riot, back in Cruz del Norte, that final piece had finally set in place. Zulema’s way of dealing with her demons had never been the most delicate path, but rather, the one that dealt the pain with fire. With anger. She had seen it before — green opaque eyes staring at the bloody mark on the cement floor, rebuffing her attempts of conciliation with a promise of revenge, of blood being shed.

An eye for an eye. 

While normal people usually sat down and cried about what they lost, Zulema pushed that line forward, choosing to face the devil himself if it meant that she would set things right and squared — doing whatever it takes. 

Seeing the woman now, Macarena wonders to herself what would they say to each other if they were anything close to a normal relationship. 

_I’m sorry for stepping over your boundaries._

Or, maybe:

_Don’t bury this down like I know you are, talk to me._

However, the two of them had never been the usual relationship. They followed different rules, a different game. One that the words unspoken meant much more than the words that were. Their mouths remembered their painful past all too well and was not to be trusted. But, their bodies had a weak memory, forgetting things easily, telling a distinct story with their gestures, their touches, and their kisses. 

In a delicate moment like this, Macarena knows better than saying anything. So, instead of opening her mouth again, she gently takes her hand off and steps to the side, reaching upwards towards the cabinet to retrieve the first aid kit they had bought a few days prior before returning to the woman. 

“Sit.” The blonde says, simply, gesturing to the couch behind them. 

Zulema had opened her eyes the instant the warm touch had left her cheek, and was now giving the shorter woman a more controlled gaze — one brow lifting at the request. 

“Sit.” Macarena repeats, softer. 

The brunette attends her call this time, taking a seat on the couch as she carefully watches the blonde place the first aid kit on the countertop, zipping it open to retrieve a gauze and a disinfectant — dripping a few drops of the medicine on the bandage before stepping in front of her. 

Curling a finger underneath Zulema’s chin, Macarena tilts the woman’s head backwards to take a look at the wound. It looked worst than it actually was, she thinks as she starts to gently press the gauze against the cut — making a hiss leave the brunette’s mouth. 

The blonde meets Zulema’s gaze for a second before removing it to check the cut, feeling pleased to see it had stopped bleeding. Humming quietly in satisfaction, Macarena starts cleaning the rest of the dry blood that was still smeared around the woman’s face. 

“Where were you?” She asks after a moment, softly, not taking her gaze off her task.

Zulema doesn’t answer her right away, letting the blonde clean most of the blood for a few minutes more before opening her mouth. 

“Some wounds need to reopen before closing fully.” The brunette confesses, green eyes focusing on a random spot behind them.

Macarena pauses her cleaning for a second, feeling her chest squeeze with the pain she could sense lingering behind that phrase. 

“Lo siento, Zulema.” She whispers, pushing their rules a little bit forward — hoping to fit a lot more than she could express in those two tiny words. 

Zulema’s eyes flickers back to her almost instantly, meeting the blonde’s gaze with a honey shade so deep she can feel her heart tighten even more, ribs closing in. The brunette merely blinks at her for a moment before giving her a brief nod, breaking their stare. 

Letting out a sigh, Macarena straightens herself back up, knowing they had reached the end of the rope with that conversation.

“Done.” She says, instead, throwing the dirty gauze on the trash. 

Zulema gives her a thin smile before rising on her feet. 

“I passed through the city I told you about.” The brunette says, changing the subject, placing her mask back on as she walks through Macarena to step closer to the sink, one hand sinking into her hoodie’s pocket to retrieve a knife — opening the tap to wash it along with the remaining dirty plates that were still laying at the bottom of the basin. 

To that, Macarena simply hums in acknowledgement, listening to the woman absentmindedly as she starts zipping the first aid kit closed and putting it away inside the cabinet.

“There is a bingo, like I suspected.” Zulema continues, assorting the now clean plates on the drainer. “With a decoration so tacky that I doubt that anyone under 60 years old will set foot in that place.” 

“Perfect way to start.” She says with a smirk, drying her hands on a towel. “Tomorrow we can arrange everything.” 

Macarena merely hums once more, resting one hip beside the countertop. “Claro.” She agrees with a small smile — her mind was still too busy processing their previous interaction for her to give an answer any larger than that. 

Zulema watches her for a second, her own set of wheels spinning inside her head before turning her back on the blonde to start heading towards the bathroom. 

At the threshold, however, she pauses.

“Rubia.” She calls out. 

Macarena glances up immediately, finding the brunette watching her with a small smile over her lips — completely transparent. 

“Gracias.” Zulema says with a low voice, honey eyes glimmering. 

The blonde feels her heart skip a beat inside her chest, not expecting it. A second passes, two, before she gives the woman a soft nod, lips parting into a matching smile. 

“You’re welcome.” Macarena replies — knowing deep down that these words they shared meant much more than just the cleaning that she had done on her bruises. 

Zulema nods at her as well, her smile widening just a little bit more before she fully enters the bathroom and closes the door. 

Letting out a small laugh, Macarena feels a full grin surge on her lips — heart expanding inside her ribcage. She never got used to these soft moments between them, always getting her off guard. 

Brushing a hand through her hair, the blonde decides it was probably best to retrieve herself and head towards their bedroom — knowing full well that Zulema will probably take longer than usual inside the bathroom to give her enough time to do exactly that.

Undressing into lighter clothes, Macarena lays her head on the pillow with a heavy sigh leaving her lips, exhaustion hugging each bone tenderly. Her eyes were growing heavier by the second, sleep gently taking her into its arms and setting her into a sweet and deserved slumber.

A few moments later, Zulema leaves the bathroom to, thankfully, find the blonde already fast asleep in their bed. 

Slowly stepping inside their room, the brunette quietly dresses herself into some loose clothes before carefully laying down beside the blonde on the mattress, not wishing to awake her.

Pushing an elbow up to support herself comfortably, Zulema rests on her side to simply watch the sleeping woman in front of her breathe. 

Macarena was laying facing her, one arm clutching a pillow close to her chest, shoulders softly rising and falling, following the calm rhythm of her breathing. Golden hair was thrown over on the mattress, face laid directly on the sheets due to the blonde’s habit of hugging the pillow that was supposed to support her own head up. 

Maybe she should buy another one, Zulema thinks. Soon, that position certainly will start accumulating some stress on her neck. 

Noticing her line of thoughts, the brunette snorts mentally, feeling amused.

It was funny to think how, after everything, this was where the two of them had ended up. Together. Fate had managed to slowly sew their paths as one, forming a thick thread that grew larger with each choice they made, binding them even tighter, even closer.

Rubia had been there for her in a way she doesn’t think the woman even understands how, being present in almost every delicate moment of her life — one way or the other — truly becoming something more profound to her than Zulema even realized. 

During the first few moments after her daughter had died, Macarena had been a silver lighting — distracting her enough to push those painful memories down,breaking them into smaller pieces, manageable ones, slowly burying them underneath the ground and allowing time to take them into oblivion. 

And now, that Fátima’s memories were back at haunting her mind, here the blonde was again, helping her bury them six-feet-under once more. 

There was a feeling growing inside her chest. Had been for quite some time, now. Familiar humming getting louder with each day, hearable. In tender moments like these, when she could feel Macarena’s soft breath caress her limbs, she could make out the words perfectly. 

She had heard this song before. 

Only once, with a man twelve years younger than her. One she believed to be a prince and the love of her life. 

Zulema could feel those very same tunes resonating inside her now, echoing as she watches the blonde sleep quietly beside her. 

At first, she had thought of them as merely a feeling of possession. Macarena was hers, simple as that. Identical twins, as Altagracia had put it, forever bound by fate and it should stay that way. Something more comparable to her cigarettes, not entirely dependable, only a pastime she enjoying to distract herself with. 

And then, their first night together happened and things had changed. 

They had started changing way before, with the day she took Macarena out of that washing machine. Seeing the blonde almost dying right in front of her had started a prolonged erosion process inside her heart — a process that, with each day that passed, made her realize that she could never loose Macarena.

Never kill her. 

Or anything of the sort. 

Made her realize that she loved Macarena.

_Deeply._

Letting out a sigh, Zulema brushes a blonde lock away from the woman’s face — fingertip tracing a gentle path down her temple, softly caressing her cheek before delineate the outline of her mouth.

The brunette knows they are only keeping up these robberies because they need to accumulate enough money for the both of them to carry on by themselves. Life on the hiding is expensive, extremely, especially if one needs to raise a child. 

A couple of millions are not enough, they needed more. 

Despite enjoying the thrill of adrenaline each time they faced a new danger — Zulema, for the first time in years, was longing for something other than her own freedom. 

She was longing to _stay_.

Deep down, she started to hope that, when the both of them had reached the end of the line with their robberies and had gathered enough cash to life the rest of their lives well, this time things would be different.

That this time, love would be enough to make Macarena stay.

_Stay with her._

Closing her hand into a fist, Zulema pulls her arm back to lower herself down on the bed, burning holes on the ceiling as she wills her mind to stop racing. There was no point in wondering about these things now, there was nothing she could do. 

Placing an arm over her face, she forces her eyes closed — counting the seconds in her mind as the hours start to pass, waiting until her brain finally has mercy on her and puts her down to sleep. 

That night, there was no beach, no bloody sunset, and no brown ghosty eyes haunting Zulema’s dreams. Merely a pitch darkness, that was occasionally cut with flashes of blonde hair and light eyes, gazing softly at her. 

— - — 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what did you guys think?
> 
> That scene turned much harder to write than I expected — as you guys may understand why, now. Fátima’s death had always been something really sensitive to me, so describing that scene through Zulema’s eyes became much more heavier than I anticipated, which is one of the reasons it took so long for me to update.
> 
> I think this chapter was one of the most important ones in the whole story, because — to me, at least — for Zulema to start building another family, she needs to properly deal with the one she lost. Forgiveness is a long road, and I plan to take it, step by step, with this story. After all, my main goal is to heal our dear Zule, and let her be happy with our Maca.
> 
> And, of course, the fact that our two idiots are finally starting to open themselves up to each other. Zulema realizing to herself that the thing she feels for Macarena is love is a huge step, in my opinion. Maca had realized that for quite some time now, because to me, it would be much easier for the blonde to notice that change than our favorite hard headed scorpion.
> 
> In the next chapters, things will be much lighter, so the updates probably won’t take as long. Although, I never know for sure, since I’m extremely busy with my studies. But, I’ll give my best to finish it as fast as I can!
> 
> Coming up: How these two will plan together their first heist, how they will deal with each other after it, and maybe, some hot moments to let out some steam…
> 
> See you all soon, my dears!
> 
> Warm hugs <3

**Author's Note:**

> As you all can see, they are still circling each other, but there's something new in the water, and both of them are aware of that ;)
> 
> I'm working on chapter two as I post this, I plan to make a pattern of 10k words each, so this story will probably be really big, ahaha
> 
> Tell me what you think!


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